'gonna dress you up in my love'

Despite recent evidence to the contrary, I truly am not a very creative person. What you might call creative I'd argue is actually perfectionism. Sweet, irritating, incredibly out of control perfectionism.

As a result of this lack of creativity, and ironically, despite the perfectionism, my children have never had homemade Halloween costumes to wear on their quests for delicious chocolaty treasures for their father and me. It's not as though I've never wanted to make a costume for my kids. Every autumn, I browse the Internet and flip the pages of FamilyFun magazine, marveling at what you can do with a couple giant cardboard boxes, dryer vent tubing, and a can of spray paint. Then, when I'm done marveling, I go downstairs and pull out the costumes I bought on clearance at Target the year before. What I lack in creativity I make up for in frugality.

As I'm wont to do in most areas of my life, I blame my lack of costume creativity on my Mom. Each Halloween, with visions of princesses dancing in our heads, my sister and I would turn to face the mirror to see how our Mom had worked her fairy godmother magic upon us, only to find ourselves sporting ashen beards, dark circles under our eyes, and various scars.

"Down on our luck hobos AGAIN!?" we'd cry, and Mom would smile.

One year, thinking I'd caught her in a weak moment, Mom agreed to let me wear an old bridesmaid dress she had hanging in her closet. Caught up in the excitement of the idea, she soon had plans for me to wear one of her old wigs and to do my make up with beautiful eyes and a tiny mole dabbed on my cheek. I was thrilled at the prospect of shocking my neighbors into giving me extra candy when they opened their doors to find me standing there, beautiful and quite non-hoboesque. That night, wig on and dress stuffed, Mom sat me down to complete my look. Twenty minutes later, I turned to face the mirror and realized that the powder I thought she was using to set my face was actually an ashen five o'clock shadow that had been enhanced by the addition of a garish scars.

"Down on my luck hobo bridesmaid?" I asked. Mom just smiled at our reflections in the mirror. I couldn't smile, what with the sad hobo eyes all. Also, I feared that if I actually smiled, she'd grab my face and attempt to blacken my front teeth with her eyeliner pencil.

I gave up trick or treating shortly after that, and didn't don a costume again until my freshman year of college, when I went to a Halloween party with my fellow yearbook staff (ain't no party like a yearbook staff party! Hey! Ho!). Out from under my Mom's hobo thumb, I reveled in my opportunity to finally take control of my costume choices, which were (a) hobo or (b) condom.

I went as a condom.

Except actually, I went as a penis wearing a condom.

Because, unlike a hobo, which I'd seen before, I thought it would be oh, so hilarious to dress up like something I'd not yet gotten up close and personal with yet at that point in life. Good thing most hobos and most penises are bearded, so I had that part of the costume down.

Clad in a pink sweater and pink tights (heh), I assembled my costume by tugging a giant, clear garbage bag over my head, rolling up the ends a bit and declaring myself dressed for my pleasure. What I failed to do was poke any holes in my costume for airflow (because who wants a holey condom, right?), so I was a rather sweaty condom-clad penis by the time we got to the party. Nothing says 'Hey, you're pretty damn smart!' like putting a giant plastic bag over your head and then laughing so hard you nearly pass out from the lack of oxygen.

There are photos of me in this costume. I'd show you, but, well, I'm pretty sure I don't want the first glimpse some of you of me to be dressed as a giant, condom-clad penis. Because I'm not kidding about the giant part. Having enjoyed the vast array of goods available at the student cafeteria during the first few weeks of college I'd pudged up a bit my freshman year, and the resulting pounds added some weight to the argument some have that girth is better than length.

The condom costume was my last foray into homemade costumes. It's because of that ridiculous rubber get-up that my kids must pay the price because I firmly believe the lack of air I got that night under that plastic bag killed what few creative brain cells I had.

However, the way I see it, thanks to a lack of condoms, I have two kids, and those two kids are going to go out in their clearance-priced costumes tomorrow night and they're going to set me up nicely with the Fun Size snacks, because, come Halloween, I'm totally a fan of girth.