Skip to main content

Halloween Costumes

Ahhhhhh, Halloween. The one night of the year where it's considered normal to dress up and beg for candy. For some of us, we call that Tuesday.

But seriously, if you grew up in the US of A, chances are you have fond memories of Halloween from your childhood. I know I do. Our mum was great for Halloween! She would make us great costumes or encourage us to dress however we wanted.

What was YOUR favorite Halloween costume as a kid? I know what mine was. When I was about 11, my dad had lost a bunch of weight...about 80 pounds or so, and he had all his old pairs of "fat guy" pants. He had them stacked up, getting them ready to go to Goodwill, and I snuck in and grabbed 2 pairs. I found that if I bent one leg back, I could get it into a pant leg. Then I put the other pair on over top of that and did the same. I decided to tie shoes to my knees while doing this. It made me look like a midget. I took an old cane and cut it down to size so I could walk. I got good enough at it, and went as Toulouse Latrec that year for Halloween. This could, however, explain why my knees are shot!

An ex girlfriend of mine has the best Halloween costume story ever. Well, I think it's great...she's always seen it as traumatic. Her mum was the type to live vicariously through her kids. One year, she dressed my ex up as a box of popcorn. She painted a garbage can with red & white stripes and hand painted the old popcorn box logo on it. She cut out holes in the bottom for legs. She then put my ex into it and filled it all the way to the top with real popcorn!

My ex girlfriend grew up in the city, so I guess they didn't go door-to-door as much as suburban kids. There was usually a big Halloween costume party up the street at the church. That's where she went. So her dad walks her, in her armless box of popcorn costume, up the street to the party. Here's where the fun begins.

In a word: pigeons. As my ex and her dad were making their way up the street, flocks of pigeons descended on them, going after the ton of popcorn that made up her costume. Her arms were stuck INSIDE the costume, so she couldn't shoo them away. Her dad tried batting them away but come on...if you've ever seen any bird, let alone pigeons, go after popcorn, you know they weren't giving up! My ex said that she screamed and cried and was scared to death and begged her dad to take her home. Her dad, probably not wanting the money spent on making this costume going to waste, let alone facing the wrath of his missus, managed to get her to the party with her eyeballs intact. Still screaming and crying, with much popcorn missing from her costume, she always swore it was the most traumatic memory of her childhood.

Personally, I think it's the funniest damned Halloween story I've ever heard!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

An Old Photo

The photo was old and scratched up. It looked like it had been handled and mishandled for years, and it probably had. Passed from hand to hand, tucked into scrapbooks, displayed in frames, stuffed into drawers, and rescued again. It had been looked at thousands of times. It was still his favorite. It wasn't historically important. Just a photograph of friends sitting in someone's back garden, sharing a few laughs and a few cold beers. The image was every bit as grainy as the memories attached to it. The colors had faded with age, drifting toward reds and yellows. Time had left its fingerprints everywhere. He was the only one left in the photograph. When his time came, would anyone remember those old glory days? Those years when importance itself seemed unimportant. When photographs weren't taken to prove anything, advertise anything, or preserve a carefully crafted image. They were taken simply because someone thought a moment was worth keeping. There was no guarantee the p...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Bluesy Melody and a Scratchy Photograph

Contrary to popular belief, he wasn't born in the mountains. Nor had he been raised in a cave. His appearance, though, often led people to think otherwise. A barber's chair was as likely a place for him to visit as the moon. I don't believe he had ever shaved. His hair, long and unkempt, looked even longer thanks to his seemingly endless beard, which was braided and knotted at the bottom. If unfurled, it probably would have dipped well below his waist.  His mannerisms and manner, while peculiar, were so only in that he was almost religiously polite. What at first glance might appear stand-offish was nothing more than his attempts at being inobtrusive. He was almost like some Appalachian monk, raised by a society trapped in the past, who occasionally ventured into town. He was extremely well-read and more tech savvy than most teenagers. Utmost, he maintained his privacy. No one knew just where he lived. He came and went at his own leisure, unnoticed by the world until he mad...
Post a Comment
Read more

The American

 In his native America, he'd always had a shady reputation. As a young man, he worked as muscle for hire, worked as a bouncer in gambling houses and brothels, and always had a side hustle moving drugs or weapons. He could always be counted on to find a buyer for stolen goods, too. He was smart enough to see the cracks forming in the government long before most. Within days of the First Attack, he'd made plans to leave the country. Some of his cohorts with Sicilian lineage helped him get to Europe. From there he was on his own. He managed to bring along a tidy sum in cash and jewels. This gave him the advantage of time to form new contacts. He was told time and time again that the capital of Bulgaria - Sofia - would be a good place to set himself up. There were gangs there who could make use of his skills, and provided he kept out of trouble and his name out of the local gossip, he would do fine.  And he did. He pretty much became, as he liked to call himself, a consultant. He ...
Post a Comment
Read more