Halloween or Whores on Parade

When I was a kid I LOOOOVED Halloween. The idea of dressing up and walking around the neighborhood collecting sweet treats with my friends was nearly as good as Christmas. I longed for the afternoon my Mom would take me down to the Yellow Front department store and I would cruise the Halloween section looking for my costumes. In my day your costume came in a square cardboard box with a cellophane top. Inside that precious box was a plastic apron and a mask. The mask covered your whole face and had two slits for your eyes, two holes near your nose and a slit at your mouth. Many a tongue was cut on that mouth slit because little kids couldn't resist sticking their tongue through the opening made for breathing.

One year I was Barbie with my pink plastic apron that tied in the back and my mask with Barbie's face printed on the front. My favorite costume - I wore it for two years was Frankenstein. Again, I had a green plastic apron tied in the back and a mask with the obligatory holes in it for limited sight and breathing.

When I got a bit older we made the costumes. There was the year I was a mummy, wrapped in gauze from head to toe and of course the ghost made of a white sheet. I think I may have been a vampire once as well.

Let us fast forward 20+ years. Now Halloween costumes range from the grotesque to the strange and less is apparently more.

Any other time during the year you would have to visit the local "adult" store to get the kind of costumes you can find during the month of October in every neighborhood department store. High heels, stockings, short shirts and barely there tops are passed off as "Minnie Mouse", "Sexy Pirate" or "Wench."

Witches are not even sacred on this most sacred of witch days. "The Sexy Witch" is now the vogue. I'm sorry but Witches in my day were not sexy. A witch came in two varieties, the green kind with a big nose, a mole with a hair and a cackle or the good witch, like Glenda from the Wizard of Oz with her flowing gown and her sweet red cheeks and cherry lips. Now we have "Sexy Witch" with all her major parts hanging out and high heels.

Even little girl costumes are out of line. Each year I am amazed at how many Mothers allow their 10 to 12-year old girls dress in lingerie and walk around the neighborhood asking for candy - really, is that what it appears they are really after?

Boys are not immune either. The bloodier and more gory the better. My boys want fake blood running down their face and knives and sickles in their hands. Each boy wants to out due the other with gruesome and scary.

Remember when it was just funny to put on your Mom's robe, paint your face with cold cream and put roller in your hair and go trick or treating as "a crazy housewife?"

I must have been busy doing something else when Halloween become Whore-o-ween but I'm not sure I understand where this is going. I do know there are going to be some very confused little boys who grow up wondering why Minnie Mouse had all her business hanging out on Halloween or why those nurses Breasts seem to be jumping out of her top.

Dressing up is fun, being sexy is fun but dressing up in lingerie should not be for public viewing unless you are in a profession which also allows for public access.

If you are searching for a costume for your party this year ladies, come on over. I will give you two bandaids, a G-string, an apple and a red bow for your hair and you can go as Snow White.