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Cindy
Droog
Read Cindy's bio and previous columns
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.
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