Better plan all week, better plan all month, better plan all year!

‘Cause it’s Halloween. That’s Dead Kennedys. Once a year I am absolutely obliged to listen to Plastic Surgery Disasters, but it has to be when wife and kids aren’t around because a) it needs to be played LOUD, and b) I don’t think they like the noise. “Why not every day? Are you so afraid? What would people say?” Paradoxically, I haven’t had any interest in dressing up for Halloween for years. In college years, we dressed up every chance we got, constantly having theme parties and excuses for crazy costumes. I first got noticed by a group of people I wanted to be in with by going to a ’60s party as Ted Kennedy. The drunk part was easy, the hard part was that every few minutes I had to jump in the shower to keep my suit jacket wet, as if fresh from a dip at Chappaquiddick. Big hit. Of course, it was fall in Syracuse, and I nearly froze to death on the trudge home.
But now it’s been years since I could even think of a costume. I’m just not interested in it. The girls are a pirate and a scuba diver, using things we had around the house. When you’ve got kids, you’ve probably got swords and Jolly Rogers lying around, plus wetsuits and flippers. It’s a wacky life. It looks as if we’re not going to be trick-or-treating tonight, because they each have a party to go to, one in the neighborhood and one over in Albany, so Dad will be doing Halloween as a Chauffeur. We’ve got a little bat-on-a-hairband, maybe I’ll wear that around. And play the Dead Kennedys when the kids aren’t in the car. LOUD.