The Costume
Years ago, when my oldest son was about 6 years old, I asked him what he wanted to be for Halloween. “I’ll make you any costume you want,” I remember saying to him, forgetting for a moment that this was a kid who wanted to build a ramp with a large steel door in the basement so he could wheel out his inventions without having to go up the stairs. Alex always set his sights high, and this time was no exception. “ I wanna be R2-D2,” he said without a moment’s hesitation. I knew immediately that this was not going to be some easy, make a mask and throw a towel over the kid kind of costume. No sir, I knew Alex, and he wanted to actually be R2-D2. He would settle for nothing less.
So… ok.. I have to make a robot costume for my son. Out of what? R2D2 always reminded me of one of those plastic, dome-topped garbage cans, so that’s where I started. I purchased one, glued the swinging lid shut, cut off the bottom, and I soon had the body. For the rest of the costume, I basically wandered around the hardware store for an hour gathering up miscellaneous pieces of plumbing and electrical supplies. I took everything home and proceeded to put it all together. The legs were made of plastic gutter, attached to the side of the body. After everything was assembled, I painted it to look just like the real thing. I even installed lights that flashed in various colors. I poured hours into this thing. When Alex tried it on, he was thrilled. I had fulfilled my duty as a father.
I spent so much time on Alex’s costume that I completely overlooked the costume I was supposed to make for myself for an upcoming Halloween party. I’ve always had trouble thinking up cleaver Halloween costumes, and this time was no exception. The party was on a Saturday, and I remember having to be in Chicago all that day, limiting any time I would have left when I got home to plan a costume. The other families always planned ahead and made elaborately-themed costumes (One family went authentically dressed as various Star Wars characters) , but for me, costume design was something I could never seem to get the hang of. The previous year I made bird costumes for all of us by spray painting bed sheets and gluing on feathers. The lingering paint fumes nearly ruined the party. And the year before that Anne made Alex a pig costume, putting me in charge of the snout, which I cleverly made out of the bottom of a used styrofoam coffee cup. The poor kid was nearly asphyxiated from the strong smell of coffee that had permeated the styrofoam. After almost passing out, we let him continue sans-snout. This year we were most likely going to have to go with the “Dad and Mom are too lazy to come up with any costumes” theme. I considered going dressed as a “guy who just got off the train and is tired,” but that would’ve been too much of a cop out. Panic set in. I had to come up with SOMETHING. I went in the basement and scrounged around for anything that could be made into a quick costume. I found a picture frame, and immediately decided I could put my face through it and go as a painting. AND, Anne could put on an old shirt and be the artist. Problem solved! All we had to do now is throw the youngest son into his bat costume and we’d be set. Within the hour we had loaded up the car with the costumes, the kids, and a Crock Pot of chili, and were headed off to the party. In my infinite wisdom I set the pot of chili on the floor. One abrupt stop later, we had a lake of chili in the car, a whole gallon of it. I remember the few moments I spent spooning it back into the pot at the next stop light, thinking that I could somehow rescue myself from this hopelessly disastrous situation. When we arrived at the party, I spooned what I could out of the car into the yard, and did my best to clean the rest out of the carpet. Despite our best efforts, quite a bit of it dried into the carpet, where it remained for years. There’s nothing quite like the aroma of old chili on a hot summer afternoon.
Alex’s costume was a big hit at the party, but not such a big hit when it came to Trick-Or-Treating. When I designed the costume, I failed to take going up steps into consideration. Alex could walk straight ahead easily enough, but the baby steps he was forced to take, along with the gutter legs that extended down to the ground, made climbing steps impossible, and almost everyone on the block had steps. So, at every house, I had to pick up Alex in his costume and carry him up to the door, which wasn’t easy because I didn’t think to install handles on the thing. He never asked me to make him a costume again. He’s an engineer, so I’m guessing he’ll get it right when his son asks him to design a costume.