Trick or Treat...

I can't really explain why Halloween is among my favorite holidays, because I've had my share of Halloween tragedies.

There was the time when I was 6 years old when a group of teenage girls surrounded me, grabbed my bag of candy, and dumped it into their little brother's bag and ran off with my bounty. My mom took me around to all the houses again to explain that my candy had been stolen, so they didn't think I was trying to double dip. Some people didn't buy the story she was selling.

Then there was the time when I was 11 years old, working at a haunted house at the KD Stockyards basement with my best friend, Jeff. Apparently I must have drank a lot of Coca-Cola before we arrived for our shift in the haunted house. About 2 hours into our shift, I really had to pee. Badly. But I couldn't leave my station, or else people who paid good money would not possibly pee themselves. So I'd like to think I was the Messiah of Haunted Houses. I pee'd myself so that others would also pee themselves.

And perhaps even better, there was the time when I was a 20-year-old college student studying abroad in London. My "flatmate," Lev, and I had decided to hit a local thrift store and buy prom dresses to use as our Halloween costume for the party some fellow students were throwing. We spent hours getting pretty, then ventured out the door for the 2 mile walk to the party location. One minor thing that we didn't realize before we transformed ourselves from Steve and Lev to Stephanie and Levita. The United Kingdom doesn't celebrate Halloween. Sidenote, we had a lot of offers for a free drink along the walk.

Despite that, well, I've had some incredibly awesome Halloweens in my 40 years. Whether it was building haunted houses in my garage or basement to scare my neighbors, or hosting costume karaoke parties that featured fog, strobe lights, a stage, and a professional DJ, I take my Halloweens seriously.

The evolution of my Halloween priorities thus far is essentially:

• Stage 1: Get an awesome costume, eat lots of candy
• Stage 2: Get an awesome costume, hope the girls at the party get an awesome costume
• Stage 3: Get an awesome costume, drink lots of beer
• Stage 4: Get your kids an awesome costume, drink lots of beer while you take them trick or treating

I'm not sure of the rest of the stages yet, but I'm pretty sure it will end up with a final stage of "drink lots of prune juice, and yell at the kids with awesome costumes to get off your lawn!"

So as a gift to all of you at this festive time of year, I give you my favorite 3 costumes I've worn for Halloween:

1. JFK back from the dead. I bought a vintage suit from a secondhand store, some basic stage makeup kits, and hair dye. I had bullet entry wounds in the front of my neck, the back of my head looked like spaghetti, and I talked in a thick Boston accent all night. Unfortunately, I could not convince my then wife to dress as Marilyn Monroe back from the dead.

2. I did, however, convince my then wife to dress as a brick one year. I took a cardboard box, painted it, cut the proper holes. Why would she dress as a brick, you ask? Because I asked, and because I was dressed as a bricklayer. My ex-brick ended up leaning up against the wall at the party. She ended up staining the wall of my co-worker. In her new home. Her American Dream. Stained brick red.

3. Tim Dwight. Yeah, if you don't know who that is, you can just stop reading now, it's ok. Thanks for reading this far. If you do know who he is, well, you'll know that I have alot in common with him. I'm bald, he's bald. We're both Iowans. Ok, so that might be about all we have in common, but still, this costume was awesome. Trust me.

Happy Halloween, and may you get the awesome costume you're hoping for.