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Scary Space Thing!

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Today’s post comes from perennial sophomore Bubby Spamden, who has been held back so many times, he has more seniority than his teachers at Wendell Willkie High School.

Hi Mr. C.,

Me and my buddies are sure excited about tonight being Halloween AND Friday too!

There’s just something about running from house to house to fill up a pillowcase with teensy candy bars and then bingeing on them until you feel sick! And it’ll be even better because I don’t have to get up and go to school in the morning!

The biggest problem is figuring out how to dress. People say teenagers are lazy when it comes to Halloween. The guys I know make a big deal out of Not Trying Too Hard.

Last year my pal Willie got a roll of fifty “Hello, My Name Is …” tags, wrote a different name on each one, and then stuck them all on the front of his shirt except one, which he put in the middle of his forehead.

When people asked, he said he was dressed as “Identity Theft”.

That’s super cool, and also really lazy. But people seemed to like it, and a lot of them asked if he thought up the idea himself, which he didn’t, so he said “No, I stole it,” which made them laugh even MORE!

I had a great idea for a costume last night – A Comet!!! And here’s the reason. They’re bright, scary and FAST!

But the thing that really sealed the deal for me was this article. It says that probe that’s about to land on the comet called 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko has some kind of electronic nose, and it did some sniffing tests and radioed back that the comet smells like combination of horse urine, vinegar and rotten eggs.

Ugh!

But also … Sweet!

I was hoping to get my mom on board with this. I know we don’t have any horse urine but I asked her if we had some vinegar and rotten eggs, and she said she wouldn’t help with that part because it’s gross.

And as far as the costume goes, she looked up some instructions online and said it’s just too hard for ordinary people to make. I guess I can’t complain but how can it be harder than landing on a comet? I mean, c’mon!

She also said some pretty mean things about papier Mache. You make the comet’s head by mixing newspaper and paste and then layering it on a beach ball.

“It’s too fussy”, she said. “We’d have to wait at least three days to let it dry and by that time it would be Sunday.”

So I guess I waited too long, once again!

But I did find a great big Sun mask, so I suppose that’ll have to do.

People will say I’m the Sun, but I’ll have to argue with them. “No, I’m a Comet!” A stinky, rude one!” I wonder if they’ll buy that? I’m fast, so that’ll help. And maybe I’ll throw some handfuls of glitter behind me. Until it runs out anyway. Hope I don’t get arrested for littering, but my excuse will be “Comets are dirty.”

If people don’t like it, they can tell it to the Comet Head.

I wish it weren’t smiling, though.

Your Pal,
Bubby

What’s your best last-minute dress-up idea?

66 thoughts on “Scary Space Thing!”

  1. Good morning. At a recent meeting we were asked to describe a favorite halloween custom. One person said she used a white sheet with holes cut in it to make a ghost costume as a last minute attempt to have something to wear on halloween. She said she was surprised to find out that this worked very well in many ways and continues to use that sheet from time to time when she needs a costume.

    I think a box could be used for a last minute costume somewhat like using a sheet to make a quick ghost outfit. Just cut holes in the box for your arms and head. Then wear the box.

    You could draw various thing on the box making it into a box of some favorite boxed item or something else. I think a good way to use a box would be to spray paint it black, wear black clothes, and put on dark sun glasses. That would be a black box costume.

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  2. Morning all – Happy Halloween!

    I’m not dressing up today, although I do have on a bright orange shirt and Halloween earrings. And I made chocolate gingerbread cookies for my co-workers in the shapes of coffins and headstones. My go-to costume when I’m in a hurry is a gypsy. Bright colored skirt, peasant blouse, sash and lots and lots of jewelry. Probably not PC these days – I suppose I can just say I’m one of the Kardasians.

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  3. I have a nice long hooded wizard cape I made for Joel when he was in his magic trick phase. Fabric in blues and purples with lightening patterns, lined in blue… nice with something orange underneath, and quick to put on. I usually wear it out everywhere I’m going on Halloween.

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    1. Ooh, my brother had a motorcycle helmet that was red and blue with white lightning bolts down the sides. Combine that with Joel’s cape and we have an outfit begging to be shot out of a cannon!

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  4. A favorite “what the heck do I do this year” costume from many years ago started with a polyester and lame a-line dress (probably someone’s bridesmaid dress from the early 1970s) – blue face makeup, a bunch of tacky beads (some in my hair, which I had braided and put up in little loops), and some stuffing so I looked pregnant…and poof – I was an alien carrying Captain Kirk’s love child. A good friend found a similar dress, also painted herself blue, and went as my very very cranky mother. I have dim memory that we decided we were Fallopians from the planet Ovara (or maybe my name was Ovara).

    If I had to put something together this year, I would be a little more hard pressed. I could revisit the year I dressed like a bible-thumping Republican (I had tickets to an SPCO concert on the same night as a friend’s Halloween party). Dark skirt suit, cream colored shirt – pinned at the neck with a fine brooch, hair tucked up in a bun, pearls, sensible pumps. Frightened my friends…and a couple didn’t recognize me at first. 🙂

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  5. my daughter when she was 7 or 8 dressed up as a picnic. lord knows where that came from. she had a box with suspenders holding it up with the red checkered table cloth and a wicker basket and a can of pop a plate and plastic silverware glued to the table cloth. it was clod but the coat under the suspenders didnt mess it up. it was a one time out of hte blue idea she had that she just did on her own and then it was doen. she went into her room and ate her candy and proclaimed it a wonderful halloween. her brother was always a football player or a hockey player and the sugar started getting incorporated into the halloween night at the first house. he would eat it alost as fast as he collected it the first 30 or 40 houses. then the sugar kicked ina nd he would climb trees on the way to the next house and run around and around and around until it was time to join his sister and little brother at the next house. then he started going out with his friends and they were not a good influence. tey were hotrible children who wanted to kill cats and light neighbors on fire. ahh the quick costumes for the kides were because they never had an idea that worked long enought o ge thte stuff so when it came time it was go look n the closet and throw it together.
    happy halloween in my plaid shirt with a bandana tied on your head and a bunch of mascera on your face. we can make you something. wanna be warm
    geeze remember the cold halloweens 15 20 years ago? 35 degree rain … ballerina. great idea. put on your coat ballerina. and some sweatpants and some boots. you are ablaaerina with a coat and sweatpants and boots . cmon….
    one year when i was about 20 i went over to my friencs house and we got squirrely about 8 oclock and we decided to go out quick before it was too late and we would be different made up characters. i was tape man and wraped my face and body in tape. we had anothe rguy who was square man with carpenters tools and another guy was a coat man with many coats and coat hangers. we went out with pillowcases full of beer and we laughed so hard as we would go ring the doorbeelll and see the confused faces answer the door and give us a snickers and we would drink a beer and run to the next house and in no time at all the cops showed up. they wanted to know what we were up to. we told em we wanted to get in the spirit. they asked if we had beer int here and poitned to t the pillowecases . we showed em the 4 beers int eh pillow case and they suggested we cgo home and pointed out that when you open a beer thats been rattled around in a pillowcase its going to be wild. we said wild???? he said foamy form being all shook up. he was right and we hadnt set some aside to drink when we got back. we had to drink wild beers that halloween.

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      1. 20 wiht the beers, 35 with the daughter and the picnic and the son and football
        40 i the 30 degree rain.
        the year we had the snowfall i was going through my divorce and took the kids to eden praire mall because it was snowing to hard to go out. they closed at 9 so i took the kids home roads were tough so i went to the ladies house i was dating and got stuck there while the 31 inches fell. i spent the next day selling showthrowers to 20 different peopl and at the end of the day had the single biggest sales day i ever had in that business. sold about 5 million worth of stuff and was having a great time. i was 35-40 then too

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  6. About a decade ago I dated a highly creative woman who lived close to where Jim now lives in South Minneapolis. She created a clever costume for her daughter: a glove. This glove was a perfect copy of those yellow cotton work gloves, only it was about four feet tall. Part of the joke was that there was NO logic to the costume.

    I’m told we will not have trick-or-treaters here at the apartment complex this evening. That is regrettable, but at home in Minnesota I always spent far too much on small candy bars and then spent Halloween evening eating them myself. I’ll be glad to have a sugar-free Halloween tonight.

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    1. We do have trick or treating in our building, behind the security system. Not sure how many children live in the building because of the constant change over. We have a dozen candy bars, about 8-10 of which will be left tonight when we drive west to Evan
      The new drug program, which I mentioned a couple weeks ago, has given me control of my diet, so I will not be eating the left-overs.

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      2. i was somewhere yesterday and was offered a candy bar and i told them no i have the opposite of a sweet tooth. i dont like milky ways or snickers and that was what they had in the bowl upon closer inspection they had butterfingers int he bowl. well thats a whole different story. i grabbed three quick and ate 2 and realized there was about to be a shortage so i grabbed another and finished them all by the time i cleared the parking lot. its a darn good thing i have the opposite of a sweet tooth or i might have a problem.

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        1. I am not lacking in a desire for sugar. But I’m on a roll for will power. On a roll I stay on a roll. Off a roll, its Katy bar the door.

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        2. Aldi has bags of the small butterfingers for sale during this halloween season. I bought one bag a couple weeks back so I wouldn’t have to remember to do it today. Somebody (not me) opened the bag and took “just one.” Well, once the bag was open, it was all over. Various people must have kept taking “just one” and before long, the bag was empty.This week I bought two more bags and laid down the law “No opening these bags until trick-or-treaters come!” I’m hoping we don’t have very many trick-or-treaters so there will be some left over, but since it’s Friday and not snowing, we’ll probably have a bunch.

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  10. Still playing around with a second novel. This is a fictionalized tale of my first two months of teaching, ending in Halloween. Except for the description of the lay-out of the town, this is how it was.

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      1. Woo hoo

        I sure like your stuff Clyde
        The other chapters on the page are just as wonderful
        Great story great character development great voice
        Go man go
        Congrats on the willpower
        Quitting cigarettes was my toughie
        I used to use the mark twain quote that quitting is easy …I do it all the time but when it came time to get serious I had to bite the bullet and understand u got to do the hardest thing ever 1 second at a time. Glad the meds are doing their magic. It’s nice to have you back

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  11. S&h is inordinatally pleased with this year’s half hour Caesar sheet and yardwork laurel wreath. He will probably want to wear it handing out treats tonight.

    I greatly admire the cleaverness of others. To this day, my favorite costume was created by a grad school classmate who wore a Robin Hood like outfite from our costume stock with an apple on top of the hat and one of those novelty arrows through the head going front to back instead of side to side.

    She was Bill Tell, Jr.

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  12. I think the only costume party I have ever attended was at the U of Chi, a toga party on the Ides of November. I know that’s not March, but we needed it in November. We were years ahead of “Animal House.”.

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      1. Belushi’s hometown!
        not so much wild as weird, or I should say creative. Many stories there. I am rare from the group for no doctorate. It was the 60’s. We stood around and sang folk music.

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  14. Paper mache is so worth it. Next year, Bubby! Set your calendar alert.

    Oh me, what shall I be? Hey! That rh… meh, you know.

    I’ve worn Groucho glasses for 10+ years. Grab my son’s left-behind suit coat, put on the glasses, that’s all ya need. Oh, and pants. Black. No cigar. The district doesn’t tolerate them. (Who can blame them? They really do stink.) For some reason this get-up was always a hit in the school parade, especially with the adults. Colleagues and parent helpers cheered when they saw me. Until the year I decided to mix it up and wear the glasses with a princess dress. Not many cheers, mostly funny looks. A lot of bible thumping republican costumes in the crowd that day.

    Happy Halloween, Baboons! One word – Butterfinger.

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  15. I have no memory of Halloween in grade school. I remember all the other holidays that would evoke a party, like Christmas, Valentines Day, Easter. I do not think we wore costumes. The post-war era was more restrained in many ways.

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  17. Then there was the time in Canada when I was in graduate school and I was dressed up as a large strawberry and I had to go the the ER to get a psychotic client get admitted to the psychiatric unit.

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  18. [hist whist]
    BY E. E. CUMMINGS

    hist whist
    little ghostthings
    tip-toe
    twinkle-toe

    little twitchy
    witches and tingling
    goblins
    hob-a-nob hob-a-nob

    little hoppy happy
    toad in tweeds
    tweeds
    little itchy mousies

    with scuttling
    eyes rustle and run and
    hidehidehide
    whisk

    whisk look out for the old woman
    with the wart on her nose
    what she’ll do to yer
    nobody knows

    for she knows the devil ooch
    the devil ouch
    the devil
    ach the great

    green
    dancing
    devil
    devil

    devil
    devil

    wheeEEE

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  19. This year, l’m still a cougar; next year, l’ll go as Ruth Bader Ginsberg. One of my favorites was a guy who had a box painted like a nightstand. He wore a lampshade and called himself a “one night stand”. My son and a friend put wire in their ties and gelled their hair, with one’s hair blowing straight back, the other sideways. They bent the ties to flow in the same direction as their hair and walked in juxtaposed to their hair and ties. They called themselves “a couple of wind blown guys”.

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  20. Just got back from Mom’s residence, where pretty much all the staff are in some kind of costume. The marketing guy is dressed up as the director – white wig (vaguely reminiscent of the D.’s hair – same sort of glasses, and the guy’s nametag. 🙂 They liked my wizard cape, called me little blue riding hood.

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  21. So far, a ghost, Tigger, Dracula, a very cute Dorothy, and a teen-aged black boy who wasn’t wearing a costume, have been here. When I asked the teenager what he was dressed as, he replied “a free man.” Guess that deserves some candy. Dorothy was really cute, I’m guessing around nine years old, with braids and collecting her candy in a woven basket in which Toto was keeping an eye on the sweets.

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  22. Mr. Tuxedo is watching Ghostbusters for the first time. Earlier he threw out some warn u drew ear and announced he was debriefing.

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