The Haunting of Halloween

The munchkins have been planning halloween since the first week of school. From selecting the perfect pumpkins to carve to the best type of candy to give out, they've been busy orchestrating every detail.

You would think that with all of this planning that the costume department would be under control.

Bella's costume ideas have evolved greatly from the first day of school. Tomorrow, she will parade as a zombie pioneer. We're planning to wake up in the morning to put flour and egg shells in her hair and get the zombie makeup just right.

Bubaloo on the other hand has been wanting to go as the bloody screen scream. Being that we want to indoctrinate in our children that fun stems from imagination and not the purchasing power of the almighty allowance dollar, we told him he'd have to create a costume. He could not just buy a mask to plop on his head.

So when we piled into the car to head to Value Village last weekend for the costume shopping spree, the kids were all equipped with ideas. Bella went on her way to gather what she needed.

But Bubaloo was thwarted by a wall full of bloody scream masks. He stared at the wall. He begged. He pleaded. And then he edged into temper tantrum mode.

Since when has Value Village started to stock the commercial crap you get other stores? One of the reasons we went there in the first place was to avoid the aforementioned scene.

Bubaloo left the store without a costume and an idea of what his costume could be.

We spent the rest of our Saturday trying to inspire him. No success. We were stonewalled by a nine year old who was unable to think beyond the bloody scream.

Then it happened. While waiting in line for 1.5 hours on Saturday night to go to the city's haunted house/trick or treat event, Bubaloo announced his new costume. "I'm going to be Mr. Moneybags!" he proudly announced.

Wifey and I looked at each other. Did he mean Mr. Moneybags sort of alluding to the Fudge character in Double Fudge when Fudge falls in love with money? Or did he mean our friend M., affectionately referred to as Mr. Moneybags, who also volunteers on the Board with me as Treasurer and spends a lot of time at our house doing financials?

We inquired, and Bubaloo was all grins, but didn't directly answer the question.

Wifey was sure he was mimicking M. I was sure that he was loosely imitating the name we gave M. and was playing on his personal love of money and singing the money song from Double Fudge.

It all became clear the next day when Wifey took him out to get the final pieces of his costume. He proclaimed that he needed to get some spray to colour his hair. While his preference would have been to have had red and gold hair because that would be the coolest, he could not dress up as Mr. Moneybags without having blond hair. He couldn't BE Mr. Moneybags if they didn't look the same.

Our son is now imitating the closest person in our life that could possibly be a regular male role model to him. He's going to be M. And, M. is coming over to celebrate halloween with us.

I don't know what will be cuter.

Our adorable uber-masculine boy imitating our somewhat effeminate gay male friend. Or, the look of horror that will cross M.'s face when he realizes that the clothing selections Bubaloo has chosen to wear while emulating him scream out for the attention of the fashion police.