Holidays are usually pretty easy for columnists. A lot of us have generic columns ready to go for the holidays. There are a bunch of major holidays and a bunch of generic topics. You pretty much have to hit the typical points when you write your holiday column. When you write about Halloween, which is the current holiday, you have to mention the candy (favorite and non-favorite) and the costumes. The costumes usually provide the best commentary because they change every year and most costumes, regardless of gender, have a “sexy” variant to counter the normal non-sexy one. Yes, there is a “Sexy Spongebob” costume, but I have yet to see someone wear one. I once saw a “Sexy Senator” costume, but all it consisted of was a pantsuit from last year’s Kim Jong Un costume paired with a Jessica Rabbit wig. I’m no expert on sexy or senators, but even I can see when something is cobbled together from the spare parts bin at the costume factory.

The cost of this year’s costumes has risen. There is a vintage Woolworth ad on YouTube from the mid 1970s where the average kids costume cost $1.89-3.89 and consisted of a mask and some sort of rubber hazmat suit thing with the clothes of the character printed on it. According to Time Magazine (For Kids), the average cost in 2016 is $82.93. In the mid-70s, this was someone’s weekly paycheck. At this rate, in 40 years, the average Halloween costume will be about $700. In 40 years, I will be 86 years old and won’t care about Halloween because candy corn sticks to my dentures. If my kids, who by that time will be well into middle age, still want to dress up for Halloween, I sure as heck won’t be buying their costumes.

The candy, however, never seems to change. Comedian Lewis Black claimed in his comedy routine a few years back that all candy corn was made in 1915 and is simply recycled. I don’t think he is far off the mark. I would like to add I think those little candy corn flavored pumpkins that people always give out are made from old truck tires, orange paint and fructose. I left one on the kitchen counter in 1979 and was not at all surprised that it tasted as “fresh” as the day it was received when I finally ate it in 1997. The kids in the neighborhood have not discovered that I have been giving Halloween candy out from the same bag I bought 27 years ago when I started giving out candy. I have it under reasonable authority that an Almond Joy does go bad, but Mounds does not. You might think that it’s nuts, but you might think it is not.

We don’t really decorate for Halloween. One of our neighbors puts out a dozen Styrofoam headstones with clever names on them and has to have the largest jack-o’-lantern in the neighborhood. This year, he brought one home in the bed of his Ford F-150. It weighs as much as my car and he carved what I imagine was supposed to be the image of Donald Trump as the face. Instead, it looks like Louie Anderson with a really bad sunburn. The folks next door to him have put out six or seven scarecrows made up to look like characters from “The Walking Dead.” I thought about putting scarecrows that look like my favorite people from television, but my wife said you really can’t recognize a Bob Schieffer scarecrow from the road. A lot of people here do the “trunk or treat” thing. I know the idea is to make it safer for kids than going door-to-door to strangers’ houses. I can’t imagine how bringing the car trunk right to the children makes it anymore safe. If anything, it’s frighteningly convenient. Now, before you go and report me, I’m not encouraging any crime, I am merely making an observation.

If you want to report a crime, call the cops about how a Superman costume suddenly costs a hundred bucks.

Contributing columnist and Baltimore native Joe Weaver is a husband, father, pawnbroker and gun collector. From his home in New Bern, he writes on the lighter side of family life.

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Joe Weaver

Contributing Columnist