Shalloween

Today is Halloween. Of course, if you're reading this after the day it was written, today is whatever day it says on your calendar. This is my favorite time of year and October is my favorite month. The smell of burning leaves, kids dressing in costume and sports fans across America screaming at their football teams to go for it on fourth down. Halloween was always a magical time of year where you could dress as the most foul, gruesome disgusting creatures by the very same mothers who made you stand in the corner for getting mud on your new shoes.

I remember there was a certain electricity in the air as Halloween night came closer. It was indescribable and exhilarating, like dipping hot McDonald's french fries into a cold vanilla milkshake. Children across the land would do the pee-pee dance anxiously awaiting the moment they could step into their costumes, pose for various pictures with friends and family members and await the parental warnings of not opening their candy before it could be inspected by mom or dad first. Someone always had a horror story of a razor blade apples, LSD-laced lollipops or stale peanut chews to strike the appropriate amount of doubt in a kid's mind about digging in before mom and dad could inspect it first. Now, I'd like to take this opportunity to add both my parents inspected my candy. Mom would check for opened wrappers while dad would check for whatever candy he liked and then steal into the shadows to devour my Butterfingers bars. Did I mention they were "bars"? Yes, back in my day, people actually gave us actual-sized candy bars. Today, kids get those fraudulent "fun size" candies. I don't know about you, but a 1/2 ounce piece of candy is about as much fun as peeing in the shower - it initially feels good until you realize what a disgusting pig you are.

Like most kids who grew up in the late 60s and 70s, my costumes had three phases:

First phase: You would go to the local dry goods store and pick out a large square box with the flimsiest cellophane window - which was usually already punctured by the time your bitching and complaining finally motivated your mom to get your costume. Inside would be a cheap plastic mask of a superhero, monster or something even more hideous - a Disney character. These frail little jobbies had an elastic string that attached to either side of the mask by sharp, perpendicular metal endings which always broke before Halloween night, and would snap violently like Chinese martial arts weapons. You could always tell the next school day who wore these costumes. The deep cheek gouges would give them away. Beneath the mask was a pathetic little rayon or polyester "suit" that only reached your knees and tied in the back like an ill-fitting hospital gown. My biggest complaint was that when I wore a batman mask, I wanted a suit that looked like Batman's suit. Oh no. Instead, there was some low-rent picture of Batman and Robin sporting creepy smiles like light-loafered cheese-eaters. As an adult, I have no problem with people and their sexual preferences, but at six years old, I wasn't very self-actualized.

Second phase: Mom was too tired of shelling out good money for the el cheapo costumes so she decided to either make something for you or cobble something together from clothes she was getting ready to burn in the backyard anyway. This was the height of Halloween costume creativity. Once, my mom made my brother Dave and I pirate costumes. Dave was the captain, so I guess that made me the Gilligan pirate. Dad made a super-cool hook for my brother, but he made me a cutlass - both out of real metal. When we did the Halloween costume parade in school, no one even took a second notice to the fact that I was carrying a dangerous weapon and could have aced my teacher right there on the spot. I should have ransomed the other kids for their lunch money. One Halloween, my mom actually came to ME and said she had a great idea for a costume - I was going to be a mummy. To that point, I hadn't ever dressed as a monster, so images of stealing souls, summoning sand storms and one day having Brendan Fraser star in two movies about my awesomeness filled my head. Long story short, I was a few safety pins short of making a complete circuit around the block. I kept getting snagged on bushes and branches and it looked like I toilet papered my entire street. By the time I made it home, I was completely naked. Mummies don't wear underpants.

Third phase: By this time, it's all about the candy and torturing the younger kids. Dave and I would go out as bums or car crash victims without ever having to get into costume. One year, we didn't even put THAT much effort into it. We would ring the doorbell of a house and someone would answer with a bowl of candy and ask where our costumes were. I would say, "Oh, I'm him and he's me." Unimpressed by our ingenuity, they would slam the door in our faces so we had absolutely no choice but to kick in the heads of their jack-o-lanterns and high tail it out of there.

Oftentimes, I would go trick-or-treating with my best friend, Ray. If you don't know about Ray from my other stories, suffice to say even Satan himself would cross to the other side of the street if Ray was coming towards him. Ray and I were responsible for roughly 99% of the mischief that happened in our neighborhood, but that's another story for another time. In the late 70s/early 80s, designers came up with costumes that had large inflatable heads, such as aliens, animals and Ben Affleck. You could always tell which street we were on by the mobs of screaming kids as Ray and I chased them down with safety pins to pop their costumes. Back then, parents didn't walk their kids around, they just sent them out with their friends while they stayed home, played cards with friends and had quick gropes with their neighbors while waiting for the bathroom. We would always find the kids with best costumes and follow them around. When the door opened, we would push the little kid to the front. Invariably, it was a woman who answered and would squeal about how cute the kid looked and wanted to show her guests the costume the kid was wearing. Then, she would pivot, look back and say, "There's the bowl. Only take ONE piece of candy!" After she turned back around, Ray would grab the bowl, run out the door with it, dump half of the candy into my bag, half into his and toss the bowl back onto the lawn. Good times.

Today, it's all about product and profit. I knew summer was over the horizon in April when Halloween candy displays appeared in the drugstores before kids had a chance to bite the ears off their chocolate Easter bunnies. Candy bars are now 1/8th of the size they used to be and Hollywood doesn't green light a kid's movie without tying it up in some merchandising with Halloween. Look, God bless Harry Potter books and movies. I truly enjoy them, I really do, but if I see an entire gaggle of Hogwarts students at my door, I might just projectile vomit over their nice, expensive costumes then watch them battle to the death on my lawn as I lob a mini Snickers into the air.

I guess they ARE fun sized after all.