A couple of days ago, Blondie twits Dagwood as they head off
to a Halloween party, saying he'll be a laughingstock for his lazy excuse of a costume: nothing but a Groucho facepiece (glasses, moustache, and
nose). Punchline: When they arrive, every single male is
dressed exactly like that.
Well, if Dagwood had attended the officially announced "party" in the
corridor outside Division yesterday, he would have been one of only three
entitled to "compete" in the "costume"
"contest". (I had
considered putting on my old Maple Leaf pin, from Edmonton days; and if anyone
asked, I'd say I was dressed up as a Canadian.) The two that did dress up were not so much in costume, as in
an amplification of their normal personalities: Alice as a cowgirl (barely), and Curdy (most convincingly)
as Hunter Thompson.
Hypothesis:
People are not so enamored of Division Management, that they want to play dress-up
for them.
*
Back at the homestead, I encounter the little girls next
door, and as they run up, I tell them not to tell me what they'll be wearing, I
want to be surprised. (Somehow,
every Halloween, I fail to guess their identities. "WHO is this little princess person??? Who can she BE????!!!!!") The younger one says: "I'm going
to be Tinkerbell". --
"Oh, uh, OK, Tinkerbell's cool.
But there might be more than one of them, so I still won't know whether
it's you." -- Her
slightly-elder sister chimes in, "I'm going to be a
cheerleader."
"Kewl."
Evening arrives -- lights on, penguin in place, candy on a
platter -- to welcome the little ones.
In the event, when the neighbor girls show up, the elder has
plunked for some quite other costume, not easily identifiable; and the little
one, well, sort of princessy, but no wings, nor suit of forest green, yet in
her mind: she is Tink.
As always, my favorite was the very littlest, someone from
another cul-de-sac, clearly going out on her very first Halloween: a cross
between Swee'Pea and the Velveteen Rabitt, she can barely stand. But as (kneeling) I proffer the candy
with a reverence reminiscent of the wafer, she does manage to squeek out,
"Theenk you".
One little boy, clad in a fashion reminiscent of stegosaurus
(had these beasts been yellow and green), informed me: "I'm a dinosaur."
One wonders how precisely to take this. He *might* have been speaking as an
epistemologist, cognizant of the ambiguity of sense-impressions, the
ever-presence of the Subject, and the pitfalls of interpretation; aware that
his get-up might be misinterpreted as that of a dragon, he promptly set the
homeowner straight. More likely,
he has been walking round and round in the dark, thinking, "I'm a
dinosaur"; and was forward to share this intelligence.
*
Try this spooky story:
A private
detective confronts the uncanny;
an ecclesiastical
mystery:
Murphy Calls In a
Specialist
*
 |
| It's the inner dangers that lie deepest ... |
.
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