Happy Halloween, Batos

Sorry, I just needed to call someone a “bato” today, and my older brother is not readily available.  It is, believe it or not, a term of endearment from me to him.

Anyway, a very happy Halloween to all.  This is probably one of my favorite holidays throughout the year.  Screw Thanksgiving—too much food and family.  Christmas?  Capitalist pig heaven!  Valentine’s Day?  Spare me—every day of the year is a romantic one if your boyfriend buys your gym membership.  But onto Halloween: I don’t usually attend parties—Halloween parties have very little appeal to me in that most adult women take it as an excuse to dress slutty—and costume contests aren’t my thing.  However, I’m always happy to dress up and hand out candy to little kids in the neighborhood.  They are unfailingly thrilled whenever Little Red Riding Hood, a princess of lost Atlantis, or a Greek goddess opens up the door and gives them little baggies full of chocolate.  The kids are sweet, and at least a couple of little girls tell me I look very pretty.  It’s an ego-boost, to be sure, but it’s also cute as hell.  I love seeing the parade of kids in costume go by.  Unfortunately, I’m currently in a complex where trick or treating in the traditional sense isn’t allowed; in fact, trick or treating in my complex happened on Monday before dark.  I mean, what the hell?

When I was a kid, though, the fun was always in getting the costume.  One year when I was about three or four, I didn’t think to get a costume and ended up wearing my older brother’s Spiderman mask from the year before. I remember it kept flipping off my head and I would have to run back to get it—I’m sure this was an indication of the big head I was to have as I grew older, more obnoxious, and incredibly vain.  Another year, my year in second grade, is a year that I compliment myself for immensely; I was the only girl dressed as a Transformer, and I challenged any of the girls dressed in their froo-froo princess costumes to mock me.  The boys thought I was cool, but alas; the coolness did not last into November 1.  (Remember, this is Saline, Michigan and I am Mexican, so there is no such thing as being a cool minority in that town!)

I’ve rarely been tempted to dress up as a medieval/Renaissance character of any sort; not only are the costumes cost-prohibitive, but they’d be a lot of work just to hand out candy.  So, although I’m often encouraged to dress up as a serving wench, I’ve never capitulated to the pushes in that direction.  I’ve dressed up once as a medieval princess, and it was a crappy ass costume that didn’t hold up well during the evening.  Blah.

As much as I love costumes, I’ve never been very creative.  I am eternally grateful for the creation of buycostumes.com and Halloween USA stores.  While my sister can make a woodland nymph costume from scratch, I’ve never been very skillful or imaginative when it comes to my own costumes.  During my year in Toronto (the medieval princess year), a pal of mine decided to go as Carrie; she dressed up in an old prom dress culled from the local Salvation Army and proceeded to pour fake blood all over herself.  Deceptively simple, but her costume was a hit.  To my credit, I did suggest that my sister go as a Popple this year, but she didn’t have enough time to put that together.  Instead, she was culturally insensitive and went as Pocahantas.

Kidding, m’ija.

Now you may be asking yourself: WordNerd, what synthetic, mass-produced outfit will you be wearing tonight to express your Halloween joy in an appropriate manner? 

To you I will answer: I’m going as WordNerd since I couldn’t be fussed this year to buy a costume.

Then you may ask: WordNerd, why are you bringing this up, then?

To you I will answer: It’s Halloween and costume talk is appropriate; also, it’s a good distraction from that today’s scay and it has nothing to do with Halloween!  It’s me and my attempt to keep it lighthearted for you batos!

Batos.