tia: tAkE tWo

Halloween! As kids, it was the one time of year we got to wear costumes, become wannabe heroes and actually beg for candy!!! I recall one year, i must've been between 8-10 years old, and I was soooo psyched!!! For once my aunt didn't make me a costume of her choosing and I got to pick one out at the store!! The box said "Cinderella". It was so exciting, see, I was a tom-boy who ruined more clothes than I care to state... because I was always running, riding my bike & generally, just busy having fun. If pants took a beating, then dresses... well... never had a chance. I carefully pulled on the plastic britches and had my grandma tie the "gown". Then I proudly donned the mask that made me bee-U-ti-fulllll. Have I mentioned I'm from Florida? October and plastic outfits to walk around in... what lunatic thought this was a good idea?!?!? A left over sadist from some outpost in Siberia?? Alright, so, the first thing to happen on this leg of the adventure was that the face mask seemed to be trying to smoother me. Happens when it's 80 fahrenheit & you're walkin around. what in the world was that made of... because it smelled like... like... formaldehyde and fried chicken. It was much too close to my face and the hole for the nose way tooo small... there certainly was NOT enough air to breathe normally. And that rubber band that held the mask in place... was this the vendetta of some decrepit old wizened BALD man with bad breath somewhere??? Seriously, that thing got so wound up in my hair I STILL have a bald spot!!! And then there were the britches... which, after the people at 2nd house dropped some candy not only into my bag, but on the ground in front of me... I bent down to pick it up... yeah, can you say, "RIP!!!" ??? I'll call this part of the ordeal a mixed blessing. Not only was I embarrassed, (My mother, grandmother and aunt all rolled their eyes and laughed. Ack! ) but I was also relieved: the heat had some place to go so the pants could no longer act like an oven roasting bag cooking ME alive!!! One of my best friends shared his Halloween costume ordeal with me recently. Our stories ran mostly parallel, though he lucked out being a boy and all... the rubber band didn't bother him because he had short hair... and the inability to breathe was remedied by only wearing the torturous device, I mean mask to go up to the houses. Schmart cookie! Needless to say, these were the last costumes we ever wore.