Because of another commitment, I didn\u2019t get a chance to help out at our house during Trick or Treat night last week. This marked the second straight year I couldn\u2019t check out what cool costumes the kids (and their parents) put together.<\/p>\n
I realize my daughter will eventually outgrow trick-or-treating, but I feel better knowing I can live vicariously through the costumes of other people\u2019s children.<\/p>\n
I find this very important because it serves as a sort of therapy from a disastrous costume experience I had as a child.<\/p>\n
The grade escapes me, but this happened sometime around junior high. I have very clear memories of walking across the stage at my parochial school for the judging at a weekend event with one thought running through my head.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a very bad idea.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because of my older siblings, I sometimes had different entertainment interests than other kids. Sure, we would all watch the prime time shows of the late 1970s, but I also learned to appreciate more eclectic programs aimed at an older audience.<\/p>\n
In short, I loved \u201cThe Gong Show.\u201d Looking back on it, I realize Chuck Barris and the rest of the people behind the show didn\u2019t think of 11-year-old kids when they chose their acts. That didn\u2019t matter to me. My brothers and sisters found it funny, so I liked it too.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s how I ended up walking across the stage with a bag over my head to try and imitate The Unknown Comic, one of my Gong Show favorites. I honestly don\u2019t think anyone got the joke. I remember having to explain my costume to a lot of people that night.<\/p>\n
I probably would have done better by preparing a bunch of bad, off-color jokes like Murray Langston (the man behind the bag) did. I probably had on a pretty garish outfit like the character, but that had more to do with this taking place in the late 1970s than any planned costume.<\/p>\n
Some one probably tried to talk me out of this idea, but I ended up going ahead with it anyway. I have no idea if I went out trick-or-treating with a bag on my head. The memory of the school event has prevented me from remembering anything else.<\/p>\n
Oh, except that my mother added insult to injury when she wouldn\u2019t let me eat any popcorn that night because I had recently been sick after eating popcorn, and she didn\u2019t want me to get sick that night too. That is burned into my brain for some reason, probably because I have to admit that there was crying involved, other than the people sad that I chose such a horrible costume.<\/p>\n
So I really missed standing on my porch this year and thinking, \u201cwhy didn\u2019t I think of that costume 30 years ago?\u201d Every once in a while, I think, \u201cOh, no, this kid might regret that in the long run,\u201d but I try not to go down that road. Too hard for me personally.<\/p>\n
I just hope the kids with unfortunate costumes get to eat whatever they want at the end of the night. That\u2019s the least their parents can do.<\/p>\n
Because of another commitment, I didn\u2019t get a chance to help out at our house during Trick or Treat night last week. This marked the second straight year I couldn\u2019t check out what cool costumes the kids (and their parents)…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-halloween","wpcat-3-id","wpcat-59-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1971"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1972,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1971\/revisions\/1972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}