From Batman to Insurance Man

The first Halloween that my younger son was old enough to decide on his own costume, he chose to be Batman. (Note: the Halloween before that, he was only eight months old, so we chose for him—cat. This possibly explains his obsession with cats to this day.) Choosing to be Batman when you are almost two years old is pretty normal. At that age you know nothing of his tragic backstory and brooding demeanor; you just know that he wears a cool outfit and gets the bad guy. Indeed, dressing up as a superhero for Halloween is pretty commonplace for young boys. Over the years my two sons have been varying incarnations of Batman, Ironman, and Spiderman.

But kids grow out of their superhero phase eventually and branch out to other types of costumes. My younger son has been a character from the Minecraft video game, a cat (again), and a penguin. (I’m talking just a regular penguin, not “The Penguin,” because he would never want to betray his younger Batman self by dressing up as one of his enemies.) This year, however, he went in a completely different direction. About two months before Halloween, he excitedly told us what he was going to dress up as this year—an insurance salesman!

That’s right, our 10-year-old son was done with superheroes and video game characters and animals, and was branching out into the world of finance. He created business cards and an insurance contract (which he keeps on insisting is legally binding) and asked if he could borrow my clipboard. He bought a cheap pair of glasses at the dollar store and popped out the lenses. He donned a suit. He combed his hair (unusual for him) and carried himself in a professional manner. He was officially an insurance salesman.

On Halloween he went door to door with his clipboard hoping to snag candy and clients. For the sake of those generously distributing treats, I hoped nobody actually signed the contract he wrote, which reads in part: “If you are unlucky enough to be reading this right now, I will let you know that there is no turning back now. If you choose to proceed, you might as well meet your financial collapse.” Yes, some kids egg your house, while my kid entraps you with unethical business documents.

Luckily, nobody reported my son to the Better Business Bureau, and his costume proved to be well-liked (albeit a tad perplexing) by most door openers. Ultimately, success on Halloween is measured by candy-haul and in that regard my son made a killing. Yes, the boy will be sugared up for weeks now and he has decided to lose the clipboard and go as something totally different next Halloween—a lawyer. Looks like I’ll be lending him my briefcase.

Man-Eating Car: News at 11

Hello, this is Rock Stone here on Channel 17, with some late-breaking news. Authorities report that there is a man-eating car on the loose this Halloween night swallowing up trick-or-treaters at an alarming rate. Repeat there is a man-eating car on the loose. Initial details of this report are sketchy, but apparently this psychotic sedan is cruising around the neighborhood luring holiday revelers with the promise of chocolate bars and gummy worms, only to gobble up its victims whole and speed off while blasting the Weird Al song, “Eat It.”

The photo on-screen was captured by a parent who was in shock as she live-tweeted her son’s demise. Her tweet, “Junior looked awesome as Frankenstein but then got eaten by a car” accompanied by the hashtag, “MoreTrickThanTreat” received over 2,000 likes at last report.

Baffled by this unusual phenomenon, local police are frantically rifling through Stephen King’s book, “Christine,” searching for answers, but at 411 pages it could be hours before any useful information is obtained. In the meantime, authorities are urging trick-or-treaters to avoid all cars sporting large, pointy teeth and lolling tongues. If you have any information about the man-eating car, or if you are the man-eating car, please call authorities right away. And now to Misty Fields for the weather…

The Annual Halloween Conundrum

With Halloween a scant three weeks away it is time to start thinking about the costume questions. There are three questions to carefully consider:

1) Should I even bother wearing a costume?

2) If I do bother wearing a costume, what kind of costume should I wear?

3) If I gave this much thought to my finances would I own a mansion and a yacht by now?

Let’s ponder these questions one at a time, shall we?

First off—should I bother wearing a costume? It’s the age old question for somebody whose age is getting a bit old. As a kid, wearing a costume on Halloween is a given. Our kids have been discussing what they will be this Halloween since November 1, 2011. They have changed their minds about eight dozen times over the past year. They will likely change their minds several more times between now and when we get to the costume store. In fact, there is a high probability that one of them will change their minds once inside the costume store. This is exactly what happened last year. My five-year-old son was three inches away from the Spiderman costume he said he wanted for the previous two days when out of the corner of his eye he saw a Wolverine costume, which cast some sort of voodoo-like spell on him and caused him to completely forget that he ever wanted a Spiderman costume in the first place.

For adults the question of costume wearing on Halloween isn’t as cut and dry. If you’re going to a Halloween party you would definitely wear a costume. If you’re taking your kids trick-o-treating you might wear a costume. And if you’re going to the doctor’s office to have them look at a questionable mole, you might not want to wear a costume. But I’m not going to a Halloween party, my wife is the one who takes the kids trick-o-treating, and I have no questions about any of my moles, so for me there is no clear cut answer. I’ll go with “yes” simply so that I can answer question number two.

Okay, so now that we know I’ll wear a costume, what should I wear? I’m not crazy about traditional Halloween costumes like ghosts, vampires, and devils. I’m not going to do the super hero thing, because I don’t want to steal my kids’ thunder.  And I refuse to wear an Obama or Romney mask because I don’t want to terrify babies and small dogs. No, I prefer more subtle costumes like a math tutor, or an account representative, or a proofreader. You know, the kind of costume that drives people crazy for hours trying to figure out what you’re supposed to be. My other option is to dress up like a Fig Newton—I really like Fig Newtons.

As for the third question, the answer is “no.” No matter how much thought I give to my finances the closest I’ll ever come to owning a mansion and a yacht is to dress up like Warren Buffett. Hmmm...now that’s a pretty subtle costume.