Costume Dress-Up

 

It is nice to get dressed up in a costume and parade around as something or someone that you are not. I was grabbed from the local market, paid for and tossed unceremoniously into a bag and carried away by my new owner. Upon arrival at my new domicile, I was tipped on my side and a birthday hat, painted black was dropped through a circular oak-tag disc forming the brim and peak of my witch’s hat. Crinkled black Crepe paper was glued under my brim to create my straggly indigo locks. In addition, I had been turned on my side and wedged in place with my long-curved stem facing downward and painted with a grotesque bright green concoction to resemble a face with a proboscis and red nostrils, canary yellow piercing evil eyes with furrowed, threatening eyebrows and glaring yellow teeth, which could have used a trip to the dentist, I might add. It was all so much more exciting than sitting in a field like an orange lump, just like 1000 other orange lumps. A bunch of grimy, grim, gloomy gourds waiting to be severed from Mother Earth’s nurturing care, with their umbilical cords cut, left stranded and alone in a field of similarly affected siblings .Cut from the vine, then sold to some smiling lady in a flowered dress and straw hat , who would proceed to take the victim to her kitchen or more correctly her house of horrors ,and peel off his skin all the while singing a cheerful little ditty to herself, and cut him up into little chunks and boil his flesh alive! Let me ask you if you know why all of these atrocities were committed? Well, it was all for a few insincere compliments on the taste of the lady’s pumpkin pie, from a captive audience of her relations who did not wish to go through the bother of producing this feast for themselves, but instead by buying a store-bought cake and a bottle of cheap wine they avoided this chore while dispensing a few offhand compliments to the founder of the feast! Well, I will take my current set of circumstances over this facade anytime. Thank you very much, and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Jim 10/23