The best costume ever!

I grunted “no.” I didn’t dare speak any clearer under my disguise or I would give away my identity. When I was ten or eleven, a local church had a Halloween party. You got dressed up in your Halloween costume and some of the older kids had to guess who was who. The last kid standing, the one no one could figure out, would win a big plastic pumpkin full of candy.

There were big Hershey’s and Snickers bars, Kit Kats, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Blow Pops, Dubble Bubble Gum, and a host of other candies. Many of my favorites. My heaven!

I wasn’t going to go to the party. I groused that dressing up was for little kids. I was past all that. Or so I thought. But the plastic pumpkin and the overflowing candy was too intriguing. I decided I would go, but I knew that I would have to make the costume special.

Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!

My mom and I brainstormed and came up with the perfect costume. I would go as a pirate. I wore a patch over one eye and a fake beard and mustache that covered much of my face. I wore an old black wig that my mother had a and a bandanna to cover my blond locks. I wore my brother’s bib overalls. To make the guessing even tougher, I put a pillow inside my flannel shirt. I wore boots and and had a fake hook on my right hand.

I had to go without my glasses. It was hard to see without them, but I figured that was a small sacrifice for the candy.

A mystery man among us

Of course, no one knew who I was. The older kids kept guessing the wrong names. I made it to the final three kids. In fact, I probably would’ve won if the girl up the street hadn’t needed a ride and saw my mom and I before the party.

It really was a great costume. For one night, I got to be someone else. Halloween is mainly for kids, but we adults still have our ways of playing dress up.

Trick or treat

I wonder sometimes how it would be to be some one else for a night. I see it in my head. I’m going to get decked out in my best suit and pull up to the Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo in Monaco or one of the ritzier casinos in Las Vegas. Would they be able to tell that I’m an imposter? Something tells me they would know right away.

I’m not big enough to be an NFL, MLB, or professional soccer star so there’s no impersonating one of them. I don’t play a doctor on TV, like the commercial goes, so there’s no impersonating a doctor either. I guess I need to give up impersonating anyone and just be myself.

Oh, well, “Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me.”