Who Ya Gonna Call?

Long before Cosplay was a thing

Before VHS and DVDs

Before streaming video

Before Movies on Demand,

Before the birth, and death, of Blockbuster

My friend Don and I

Wanted to be Ghostbusters

We went to various

El Paso area dollar theaters

Watched the movie three times

Took notes on clothes,

On proton packs with nutrina wands

Memorized the theme song

For a couple of months

We built packs

Wired electronics

Made outfits

Worked up a song

And a dance to go with it

We entered

Several costume contests

And won one

Audience calling out “Ghostbusters”

As we sang and danced

First prize was a hundred dollars

A princely sum

Which we never received

Don, in Michigan,

I, in Texas

Speak regularly,

We still wonder

Where our hundred bucks are

Three hundred in today’s dollars

Six hundred if we’d invested

To be honest

We’d have spent it

On beer

But we wonder

How our alma mater

(Sponsor of the costume contest)

Would react

If we sent a bill

Demanding payment