Halloween Costume 2009

Halloween is mere days away and I have no costume plans. This is saddening since it's my favorite holiday. For as long as I can remember, I have waited each year for that day to roll around. I was almost born on Halloween, so maybe that's it. Or maybe it's the fact that since birth my mother has instilled in me the thrilling idea that it's a night for dressing up and wandering the neighborhood in search of candy and spine-chilling events.
Granted, it's not surprising that I haven't planned a costume yet. I think I ran out of my best ideas sometime in middle school. That's around the same time I stopped trick-or-treating, but the costume problem had nothing to do with that. I stopped because I knew I had grown out of it. Trick-or-treating is for kids. That's what makes it so special. It's one of the few privileges the under 13 set really gets.
My most original costume, as I've told a few people lately when the topic came up, was the year I was a picnic table. I got the design from a magazine. My dad took pieces of wood and made a frame for my shoulders. Then we draped a vinyl tablecloth over it with a hole cut out for my head. I took items from my extensive plastic food collection and glued them to the front. Voila. Except the people opening the door at several houses had no idea what I was. They were at a complete loss. It got so bad that I finally started saying, "Trick or treat. I'm a picnic table." whenever people answered the door.
Maybe I'll just break out the plastic fangs again this year. I made a modest investment back in middle school into two individual fangs that I molded to my teeth for a vampire costume. Ever since then, I've been a vampire for Halloween more often than not. I even pop them in just to startle people or when I need a pick-me-up. What can I say, it makes me feel good to have fangs.
This year I was hoping to talk the boyfriend into being Mulder and Scully from the X-Files, but I don't think that's going to work out. I've already been a witch, a pirate and a cat burglar and I don't really feel like repeating those this year.
Plastic fangs, here I come.