The Ghost of Halloweens Past

One of my earliest Halloween memories was kindergarten. I was so excited to dress up and have our class party. And the day before? A class trip to the pumpkin patch!

Along with being one of my first Halloween recollections, it's also the first anxiety attack I can remember. While everyone else bounces in excitement over trips, I quiver and shake, terrified of being out of my comfort zone. Thankfully, this has gotten better with medication over the years. But at five years old, I didn't have the pills coping mechanisms I have today.

And I got so freaked out that I puked on the bus. On the stairs of the bus even. While everyone else was still waiting to climb off the bus. Which meant that all of my classmates had to go out the back exit.

Awesome. I was that kid.

I think I puked on every class trip up through high school. And you might as well include college because even though I was no longer taking class trips, Spring Break my freshman year is why I can't stand peaches (you spend a couple of hours barfing in the heavily peach-scented Georgia welcome center and tell me you'll ever eat peaches again).

Kindergarten Halloween is also one of my first memories of feeling inferior. See, everyone else had awesome homemade costumes. Their mothers had spent hours crafting ghosts and clowns and princesses and pumpkins. Me, I had a costume from Kmart. One of those cheap jumpsuits that smelled like a chemical spill. Solid-colored vinyl pants, a picture of the character you were supposed to be on the top, and a plastic mask that attached with a rubberband that always broke after 20 minutes which was just as well because you couldn't see out of it anyways.

To make it worse, there was only one other kid in the class wearing the dreaded lame plastic costume. Darren. The fat kid. AND? We had the same lame plastic costume. Papa Smurf. All of my friends in their beautiful princess and angel and fairy costumes and I was a plastic smelly man-Smurf. (Don't Google for Smurf costumes, btw. Terrifying blue adults. I gave up finding the Papa Smurf costume.)

As much as it made me feel pathetic not to have a "real" costume, life may have been even more traumatic the one time I remember my mother actually putting together a costume for me. It consisted of a black leotard with a tail sewn on the back, black stockings, ears on a headband and drawn-on whiskers.

Cute, right?

Except this was 5th grade. The year my body decided to start growing odd bumps on my chest. Bumps that I did my very best to conceal so my classmates wouldn't notice and wouldn't laugh at me. Bumps that could NOT be concealed in a leotard. Plus, this was New York - it was damned cold in late October to be running around practically naked! So I threw my pink winter coat on to keep warm and hidden. But then my legs were cold, leaving me to pull my jeans back on as well. And I was basically a girl with a weird tail sticking out between my jacket and jeans, whiskers, and cat ears. Like I didn't have a costume really at all, just a few lame accessories.

This year, I'm not dressing up. And I'm not handing out candy. We're going away (yes, again!) for the night and I plan to spend the evening hanging out in the hotel bar. That's right - the only thing going bump in the night? Will be me. Just the way I like it.