Cindy

Droog

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October 6, 2008

Halloween Is Here! (OK, Close Enough for Me)

I’m not sure why it is that I procrastinate about everything else in life except for Halloween. Meeting agendas? I try to get them out about 10 minutes before the start time. This column? My editors will attest that it typically comes in within the hour of deadline.

(Editor’s Note: Yep.)

I’ve even procrastinated my way through life. Getting married and having kids later than 99 percent of my friends. Getting all the way to the defending-the-thesis part of my master’s degree – then waiting five years to do that.

Not to mention working out. It’s usually about 10 p.m. when I realized I’ve put it off all day, and I get down on the floor during South Park or Friends reruns to bang out 50 sit-ups, some push-ups and maybe – maybe – a little jump rope.

This list goes on and on.

But when it comes to Halloween, I took out the decorations on the first of October. Got the daycare gift bags already decorated with bat stickers and tied with orange ribbon. I’ve even been looking into having a Dia de los Muertos celebration for our family, and how my husband and I can embrace this tradition that was introduced to me last year by a close friend.

And this past week, while it was still September, I bought the boys’ costumes. They arrived in the mail on Saturday, and since then it’s really hit me that Halloween is supposed to be a holiday of opposites. No wonder I’m not myself when it comes to Halloween! 

My oldest wants to be a tiger. We watch tigers on the Discovery Channel – up until the time they catch up to the live deer and begin tearing their legs off, that is. We read about tigers in his favorite book. “A tiger is a mammal. A tiger has fur . . .”

But his personality is the exact opposite of a tiger. They sneak up on things. You can hear him coming from a block away, because he loves to yell, “Here I come, Mama!” at the top of his lungs. They also pounce aggressively. He refuses to squash an ant or swing a shoe at a bumblebee, and the closest I’ve seen him come to hurting anything is when he hugs his baby brother a little too hard – out of love.

My youngest wants to be an owl. Owls are loners, whereas my son will follow two inches behind me, even if I’m just walking across a room. They’re also nocturnal. Not him. Thankfully, he’s up with the sun, and down with the moon.

Both boys have chosen true “costumes.” Not like me.

A few years ago, I dressed up as Punky Brewster, to whom I’d been compared many times back in the ’80s. Not because of the rainbow leg warmers. (Well, OK, maybe.) But mostly because of her can-do spirit. Last year, I went as Gilligan’s Island’s Mary Ann. Trust me. This was not a stretch either. After all, I’m short and perky and completely unglamorous, just as she was when compared to Ginger and Mrs. Howell.

When I was in fourth grade, I went as Lucy Pevensie from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Again, not so much a costume when you consider that I’m short, have an intensely active imagination and love to walk through the woods in the winter. To be clear, though, I’ve yet to meet a faun/goatman. The next year, I went as Guinevere because, well, it was easy. I was already cast as her in a play, and so I already had the costume.

This year, I need to take after my sons. Be creative. No taking the easy way out. Break my own pattern. So I can’t go as a corporate loud-mouth dressed in a navy blue business suit with spit-up on the shoulder. So much for the Sarah Palin idea. Maybe I’ll go as O.J. After all, I’ve never hurt a bee, an ant or, hopefully, another human being either.    

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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