Halloween costumes are only as cool as their wearers.
That's horrible news for me, a longtime sufferer of uncoolinitis.
Every year I tell myself that this will be the year I buy a sexy genie costume, complete with flimsy material and a midriff-baring top.
Of course, every year I also tell myself this is when I will lose the extra weight so that I will look good in said sexy genie costume.
Neither ever happens.
Whether it is procrastination, an unwillingness to spend money I need to eat, or a pizza addiction that blocks anything even remotely approaching sexy, Halloween always comes down to one thing: Me as a witch.
And the witch costume is never really elaborate. It's usually a black dress with a black pointy hat from Longs. You know you hit Halloween rock-bottom when you're older than 11 years old and shopping at the drugstore for your costume.
On the other hand, the one other time I decided against the drugstore, I ended up at Party City, fighting over caveman and cavegirl outfits, geisha and samurai robes, and the cow costume with the huge udder.
This year I told Derek we were going to be better, much more proactive. He laughed. "What does that mean? Are we going to make our costumes?"
It was my turn to laugh. It only took three summers of sewing school before my Japanese-speaking teachers conjured up enough English to beg my mom to let me quit.
Butterick was not my friend.
But my idea this year was that we would be something hip - something cooler than the witch fallback.
Of course, for Derek, who (as a teacher married to a law student) is the moneymaker in our relationship, it always comes down to money.
"Well, how much will you let us spend?"
Derek shrugged. "How's fifty bucks?"
Fifty bucks sounded great... until I went online and discovered that fifty bucks would buy only one of us a hip costume - the other would be forced to repeat last year's Party City debacle. Frankly, I would have walk around as Marie Antoinette for at least three months to rationalize such expenditure.
Derek tried to make light of the situation. "We could always do that Adam Sandler thing - the one where we walk around with a fork on our heads and go, ‘I'm forkhead! Gimme some candy!'"
So now my options were drugstore witch, last year's geisha costume or forkhead.
It was clear that I needed to take action. I opened my closet to see what I could create from clothes I already owned.
Whoever said necessity was the mother of invention had never seen the inside of my closet, which only yielded costumes such as "Uptight Librarian," "Banana Republic Sale Rack Crazy" and "Older College Student."
Oh yeah, lest I forget the good ol' "Witch."
At times like this, thank goodness for Derek's unflappable logic. "Gen," he said plaintively, "what are we doing for Halloween anyway?"
"Wha...? Why, we're going to... uh..."
Last year we sat on our friends' couch dressed as a geisha and a samurai while the four of us decided against going out.
Obviously trick-or-treating is out. At this point in our adult lives, we could be seen as threatening when showing up at anyone's door demanding anything, let alone "candy," which could easily be perceived as two junkies seeking a fix.
As for clubbing, well, that's one of the reasons we got married - so we didn't have to breathe other people's air within a box vibrating with deafening music and alcoholic bravado.
"I dunno. Walk around downtown to people-watch," I finally offered.
"And we need elaborate costumes for this?" he asked.
"I guess not."
Derek silently placed the Longs ad for a witch's hat in front of me as our black cat, Minky, strolled by.
Sometimes one must accept one's fate gracefully: Once a drugstore witch, always a drugstore witch.
