Out of Costume
’Tis the Season to Feel Inadequate, Holidays, Special Occasions and Other Times Our Celebrations Get Out of Hand by Dorothy Rosby now available at Mitzi’s Books in downtown Rapid City and on Amazon in both print and e-book versions.
Among my many failings as a mother, add to the list the fact that I never made my son a Halloween costume. I took him trick-or-treating; I checked his treats for dangerous tricks. And I kept him from overdoing it on candy by helping myself to his stash when he wasn’t looking. But I never made a costume. I’m just not the crafty sort. I can sew on a button and stitch up a hem if I absolutely must. But the last thing I sewed with an actual sewing machine was my thumb, and that has a way of inspiring you to look for other hobbies.
It doesn’t help that I’ve never enjoyed wearing costumes myself. When I was growing up my Halloween costumes consisted mostly of those hard plastic masks that stayed on my face only because the elastic string got tangled in my hair.
I dressed up as Charlie Chaplin at some point in my adulthood but generally I have steadfastly avoided costume parties. I once found myself in the midst of a crowd of people headed to one while I was visiting a gambling town. It was late October and my husband and I rode the shuttle from our hotel to the casinos downtown. We soon discovered that we were the only ones not on the way to a costume party. We looked painfully out of place, though we told everyone we met that we were a young, hip duo dressed as an over-the-hill married couple. It still bothers me that so many people believed us.
On the shuttle with us were a dozen or so witches, five or six Draculas, a few cowboys, one cowgirl, one Superman and several loose-looking women. Most of the latter’s costumes would never work for me. It’s cold in late October and a lady of the evening wearing fleece and wool socks doesn’t look right.
I have appeared in several theatre productions, but someone far more creative than I am always came up with my costumes. And I had some wardrobe malfunctions during my drama career that may have contributed to my costume phobia. There was the slip that slipped during one performance. I had to wiggle and squirm to keep it from landing around my ankles. That made it hard to focus on my lines, plus the audience probably thought I had fleas.
During another play my leading man was supposed to light the cigarette I held. Neither of us are smokers and we couldn’t get the darn thing to light. I wound up “smoking” an unlit cigarette during an entire scene. Foolish as it looked, that is how I prefer my cigarettes.
You’re probably thinking that this is a lengthy justification for why I never had the ambition to create a Halloween costume for my only child. But the fact that I never made any costumes doesn’t mean he never wore any homemade costumes. He once dressed as Inspector Jacque Clouseau from the Pink Panther movies. The idea was his; the trench coat was mine, and he tramped around our entire neighborhood with it dragging on the ground—a safety no-no and a drycleaner’s nightmare.
Fortunately you can buy costumes and I bought many of them, including several soldiers, Batman and a Star Wars storm trooper . And as far as I know, no one ever withheld candy from my son because he wasn’t wearing a homemade costume. Nor did I ever ask any of the trick-or-treaters that came to my door if their costumes were homemade. But if a frumpy middle-aged couple ever shows up at my door asking for candy, I may have some questions.