This 'Gas Crisis' Costume Reminds Us Of A Time We'd Rather Forget

DALLAS, TX — One North Texas man pumped a lot of work into his Halloween costume this year. Inspired by the days of a supposed gas shortage spurred by the onslaught of Hurricane Harvey, Justin Reyes crafted a one-of-a-kind costume — a gas pump, mid-crisis.

Reyes, who lives in McKinney, said he enjoys making topical costumes. In 2012 he hand-made a 'Big Tex on fire' look. This year, he continued with that trend, and with a little work and photoshop he put together a costume one could only describe as gas station chic.

To craft the costume, Reyes took a photo of a nearby gas pump and used photoshop to enlarge the elements he would later glue to cardboard. The "sorry out of service bag," he said, he obtained legally.

"I went to a couple of stores [for the bag]," he said. "The first told me he didn't have any extra. He had 16 pumps and 16 bags. The second had to make sure it didn't have their name written on the sticker. The third place was happy to give me a bag as long as I didn't use a picture of their pump. At the end of the day, I decided against throwing a [station's] name out there. I just wanted to poke fun at the situation we had going on up here."

Reyes said he printed pages of his friends' Facebook posts written during the crisis and attached them to the back of the costume along with photos of people filling large barrels with gas and news headlines from the time of the collective freak out. He said overall his friends enjoyed the costume, although some of them didn't get it right away.

"There's a couple folks who needed a little guidance as to exactly what it was," he said. "It was labeled as both unique and funny — something they weren't expecting. It was a big hit at the party."

Image via Justin Reyes, used with permission