As we anticipate Halloween, the fond memories of years past come flooding back--those days of pinning a black bath towel around our shoulders, wedging two pointy candy corn under our top lip and chasing our younger sibling with the forbidding chant, "I vant to suck your blood!" in the best Transylvanian accent we could muster. Now, as an adult, the times we thirst for human blood are rare. Yet, on some level, it would still be fun to have fangs. Enter Pamela Sedmak, owner of Fangtastic Fangs. For $125, she will hand-carve a set of fangs custom-fitted to your mouth. In the past 10 years, Sedmak has made hundreds of fangs for actors and Halloween costumes, but most of her clients are just "normal people." (Once vampirish dental prostheses are involved, "normal" becomes a very subjective term.) The fangs are incredibly realistic and durable--she's had her pair for 12 years--but she doesn't recommend eating ("OK, maybe a Jell-O shot") or trying to open beer cans with them. Plus, if Anne Rice likes them, how can we argue?
This 1.5 million-square-foot mall near D-FW has everything anybody could possibly want in the way of escaping the weather and wasting time. The 5-year-old mall is one of the largest in Texas and offers a bunch of stuff to do besides shopping. The mall has a 30-screen theater, restaurants and a GameWorks that has a bar. If you get bored with the mall, a Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World is right across the parking lot. There you will see all manner of outdoorsmen and outdoorswomen who make a pilgrimage to this fishing mecca. Also, when you get bored, play "Guess Which Shopper is From Oklahoma." That's always fun.