A child's (and for the purpose of this article, I think we'll define the word 'child' very loosely) Halloween costume is a window on their soul. More than simple wish fulfillment, the choice combines with the annual cultural zeitgeist, becoming a vast, ever changing, kaleidoscopic tarot that to the trained eye reveals more about the child beneath the mask than even they may know.

The likelihood that your eye is trained is small, unless we're speaking of an eye trained to spot which links on a Google search page will yield the filthiest stimulation but not charge you for the pleasure. My eye, on the other hand, is known for peering directly into the soul of those it beholds. Actually, both my eyes do that, which is good, because that way I see the soul in 3-D. So join me, why don't you, metaphorically, as I explain WHAT YOUR HALLOWEEN COSTUME CHOICE SAYS ABOUT YOU! I'd tell you not to try to pass off my keen, scientific observations as your own while trying to pick up a young lady who's costume is intended to be 'sexy', but we both know that would be a wasted effort on my part. Which is ironic, as your attempted pick up is also doomed to failure. DOOMED! Spooky.

THE PIRATE

In previous years, the Pirate costume has been popular amongst boys and girls who are at heart far more rebellious than they appear. These are children, who though they may be quiet and polite on the outside, strain at the bonds of authority on the inside. They instinctively reject rules and adult wisdom of all kinds, and have a rich fantasy life that involves freedom, adventure, robbery, murder, stump fetishism and scurvy. This year, however, all that has changed. The popularity of the second “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies has rocketed the Pirate costume to this years #1 costume choice. This means any child with a true inner pirate would rather die than wear a pirate costume, which now stinks of conformity. This years Pirates are more likely children who are sheepish, afraid, outlandishly gay for Johnny Depp, (boys) hopelessly lusting for the outlandishly gay Orlando Bloom (girls and boys) and cross dressers unwilling to do what they really want to do and dress like women (boys) or men (girls).

THE SCREAM

Once the most popular Halloween costumes, the movie may now be older than you, but there are still Chinese warehouses full of the masks. They can now be obtained for around $1.20 a gross. Children choosing this costume are personality free candy junkies, their 'trick or treat' no more or less than a desperate cry for help.

THE WITCH

This child is a girl, or would like to be. If she's lucky, she's painfully shy and is making what she knows is a safe Halloween choice. If she's not shy, she's dull, dull, dull, so painfully dull that her own parents frequently mistake her for the Swiffer. One variation is the child who is specifically The Wicked Witch of the West from 'The Wizard of Oz'. You can tell her from other 'witches' by her green face paint, hunched posture, and constant barked 'I'll get you my pretty, and your little dog, too.' And 'how about a little fire, Scarecrow'? These are children who think they have far more to offer the world than their generic witch counterparts. Sadly, they are wrong. Wicked Witch of the West children should be encouraged to pair off for Trick-or-Treating with girls who are Dorothy several Halloweens in a row. As each child fills with loathing for the other, one can hope some self knowledge will be born. Don't count on it, though.

THE HOBO

Popular since the great depression ended, prior to which you could only tell costumers from the real deal by the smell, you should never give these children treats. Their costume choice already illustrates that they are all about the free ride, and they don't need encouragement. The best you can do for these lazy, shiftless, responsibility shirking little bastards is to tell them to get the hell off your porch and get a job. Maybe this will help them wake up and stop dreaming of the freedom that bone crushing poverty and homelessness almost certainly bestow.

SOMEONE FROM 'LORD OF THE RINGS'

Here's another costume choice that reflects sweeping societal change. Prior to the release of the first Peter Jackson 'Lord of the Rings' movie (and let face it, if you were even thinking of the Ralph Bakshi animated LOTR you are a useless old fuck) (or the Rankin Bass 'Hobbit' and 'Return of the King' made for TV movies, in which case you almost certainly suffer from severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and are confused and dangerous) the choice of an LOTR Halloween costume meant you were the child of aloof, socially inept parents who were trying to make you gay. Since the tremendously popular movies however, a LOTR Halloween costume means you are gay. It should be noted that here I do not mean 'gay' as in same sex attraction, but 'gay' as in 'gay for Johnny Depp'. Interestingly, males attracted to Johnny Depp, while gay, may not be gay, but often are both gay and gay.

SOMETHING YOU HAVE TO EXPLAIN

This child may well have Aspergers Syndrome, a tragic neurological disorder with a hilarious name. Totally focused on their inner life, they are unable to read any of the social cues a holiday Like Halloween is full of. They do not understand that when an adult says 'Oh, aren't you cute? What are you supposed to be?' they are just being polite. They are uninterested in hearing an oral doctoral dissertation on how your costume is 'Cinderella at the stroke of midnight, caught halfway between a ball gown and rags' or 'what Buzz Lightyear would have looked like if he wasn't a toy and existed in the Star Wars Universe and trained as a Jedi but was seduced by the dark side and became the most powerful Sith Lord ever.' Sadly, this child cannot even decode the boredom they induce, and so will require outside adult control to learn to function successfully in the adult world. Or they're just a self-involved, boring little sack of crap. Not every jerk kid has a bona fide disorder. Some of them just suck. Sorry, parents, but that's the hard truth. Tough love.

CULTURAL ZEITGIEST

This is just a joke. It refers to the deliberate use of an elitist term in the introductory paragraph that went unexplained just so I could make this joke now. I mean, how the hell would a kid dress as The Cultural Zeitgeist? Except that one year when everybody was wearing OJ Simpson Masks. Man, was that sick or what? Is it any wonder the whole world hates us?

A POWER RANGER

The soulless little vermin should be corralled into camps and set on fire. I shit you not. Okay, okay, when the craze first started, fine. But what was that, like a hundred and fifty years ago? AND THEY KEEP COMING! Every damn year hordes of little mouth breathing, troglodytic bastards capering across America's lawns making spastic little faux Karate moves as if it could hide the truth, which is that they yearn for the faceless, blameless anonymity of Nazi mob. It should be legal to open fire on them. IMPORTANT NOTE: It is not legal to open fire on them.

SEXY GIRL

Sexy kitty, sexy Witch, sexy Vampiress, sexy Nurse, sexy Goth Girl, sexy Whore, sexy Girl Scout, sexy Girl Scout Whore, it hardly matters. The 'Sexy' costume, an exclusively female phenomenon, can mean several things. On an adult woman, it signifies both repression and desire. On an adult sexy woman (i.e. Sexy prior to costume) we see a faulty body image. An adult non-sexy woman in the 'Sexy' costume reveal inner repression, sexual shame and startling denial in thinking fishnets and darkness will take the place of diet, exercise and self-esteem. On a teenage girl we see dawning sexuality; confused, misunderstood, awkward, possibly the daughter of parents who in earlier years made her dress as Galadriel the Elf Queen. On a child, the 'Sexy' costume is a direct indication she should be placed in foster care as soon as possible, unless she is already in foster care in which case she should be ignored until something horrible happens and then everybody can get outraged until they forget about it and it happens again. In the event the 'sexy costume' is used on a dog or cat, you need to get to know the owner. 'Cause they are hot.

SUPERHERO

This choice might mean all sorts of interesting, laudable things about you if you had at your disposal a Hollywood costumer. Since you don't, this costume means you are in super denial about what a super chubby super wiener you really are.

-Max Burbank
 

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We're not talking precocious "Danger, danger Will Robinson" Billy Mumy here. Not "Fish Heads" Barnes & Barnes Bill Mumy, not even Hippy Dippy "Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown" playin' "Bless the Beasts and the Children" pop culture footnote Billy Mumy (which by the way is pronounced M-YOU-ME, and not Mummy). We're talking perhaps the most perfectly chilling performance a child star ever gave that makes "I see Dead People" and "Danny isn't here, Mrs. Torrance" look like the weak sisters they are. Twilight Zone, episode 73, "It's a Good Life". The great Rod Serling wrote this story of what might happen if a typical tyke had the powers of a God, but Billy Mummy gave us the blank, innocent, amoral face of the monster lurking inside every kid. "It's good you did that Anthony. It's real good."

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