Trick or Treat, Muthafucka!

The pumpkins are ready to be cut and disemboweled, plastic witches and vampires are being hung in windows, and the stores are full of over-priced bags of tiny candy that we buy early, eat ourselves, and buy again. Yes, it's that time of year again. The time when you spend most of your days talking your child out of choosing elaborate, expensive, hard-to-make, and just plain inappropriate costumes.

My son is 8. For a long time he didn't like Halloween, and I was oddly proud of this. While other parents were buying costumes, or swearing in the middle of the night in front of their sewing machines covered in glue, felt and sparkles I was blissfully unaware of the torture of costume shopping. Matthew detested costumes. He despised dress-up parties, and he had no time for makeup or masks. It was cheap as hell.

Two years ago, Matthew finally figured out that the payout for Halloween far outweighed the indignity of wearing a costume for a few hours. He still didn't grasp the true childhood spirit of Halloween, though, and when asked what he wanted to be he brightly said "I don't know. A sparkly, blue butterfly?"

Something stirred in me. I didn't know what it was at the time, but now I recognise it in a heartbeat. It's that feeling that parents have when faced with the idiotic conundrum parents regularly, and willingly, put themselves into. It's when you ask a child what they want, and then have to spend the next few minutes telling the child that even though you asked him for his opinion you have to say no. It happens at Christmas ("I want a robot the same size as me!"). It happens at restaurants ("I want an ice cream sandwich in the shape of a puppy!"). And it happens at Halloween.

Hopefully next year I'll remember to read this post, and constructively cut him off by bringing home a costume and telling him it's the last one left in the entire city.