Any costume’s fine, as long as it provides full coverage

Praise OCTOBER, OR ANY month in which teenagers are actually putting on additional clothing, ghost sheets or warlock robes, any clothes at all, for I’m tired of seeing their bejeweled navels and their bony derrieres. Want a real scare? See what the typical teen wears to the typical mall. You’ll wake up in the night screaming like a werewolf and sweating like a highball glass. Wondering where God has gone.

But in the meantime, let us praise October. If only for the transformations.

“What are you going to be?” I ask the little girl.

“A stockbroker,” she says.

“I mean for Halloween,” I explain. “What are you going to be for Halloween?”

“Bumblebee,” she says.

“Good choice,” I say.

“Alexis is going to help me,” she says.

Only Mother Nature can create a bumblebee, but I suppose if you have Alexis helping you, that’s the next best thing. Alexis gets things done. Alexis is a doer.

“Dad, what are you going to be?” the little girl asks.

“A screen-door repairman,” I say proudly.

“Why?”

“Why not?”

If the screen-door repairman idea doesn’t work out, I’m going to dress up as a corporate benefits consultant. I already have a $600 suit and a plastic smile, not to mention a handshake cold as cider.

Besides, what’s scarier than a corporate benefits consultant walking around muttering, “We have to get a handle on these spiraling health-care costs. We just have to.” It’ll be both timely and frightening, the way all great costumes are.

“Will you get the Halloween boxes down?” my wife asks.

“Absolutely,” I say.

“When?” she asks.

“Right away,” I say and head off to watch a ballgame.

Let us praise October, when the first pile of holiday boxes comes out. First Halloween, then Thanksgiving, then that other holiday whose name escapes me, till one night while watching the World Series I see him. Santa Claus. Oct. 21 was the date -- the very first Christmas commercial of the season.

“What took them so long?” you wonder. “Who’s running this country anyway?”

“Look, there’s Santa!” the little girl says, spotting the fat man with the crooked smile.

“I want a plasma screen TV,” her brother says. “For my room.”

“Me too,” says the little girl.

Next to me, the baby stirs, sensing a ridiculous moment he doesn’t want to miss. He wakes up smelling of sleep and talcum powder, warm as a tray of biscuits. He blinks a couple of times. He blinks some more.

“Want a plasma screen?” I ask him. “I’m making a list.”

He’s 10 months old now, a baby of surprising charisma, given his lineage. We stare at each other through my bent wire-rim glasses; then he grabs them and flips them to the floor. He laughs when he does this. See that? Charisma.

“You know, they’re doing some great things with digital cameras,” the baby notes.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” I warn him.

I’m in the first trimester of a 30-year mortgage, yet there is always money for the real necessities -- diapers and another jar of that miserable food he spits out all over my dress shirts. Always money for one more holiday. As long as we buy only one item at a time and resist the better brands of scotch, the money may hold out.

“Do you want to change him?” my wife asks.

“Into what?”

“His diaper, I mean.”

Like there’s a choice? There’s no choice. Homecoming is past us and Halloween looms, and beyond it those other holidays almost too numerous to count.

But I’m a man of simple pleasures. Even after 45 Halloweens, I’m still thrilled by the sight of fishnet stockings on some middle-aged witch, perhaps with a small tear at the thigh. Or a big bowl of those tiny Milky Way bars, there for the taking. The smell of singed pumpkin and the snap-hiss of a beer bottle opening at Bruce and Susan’s annual fall bash. Simple, classic pleasures that never get old, even as we do. That’s Halloween.

“So what are you going to be?” I ask my wife.

“Cleopatra,” she says. “You?”

“A corporate benefits guy.”

Now, there’s an evening: Cleopatra and the benefits consultant together on the couch, holding their baby and wondering where the other kids went. To the mall, possibly. Or off to change the world. Me and Cleo, we can only hope.

“Benefits consultant?” she asks.

“That’s right, sister.”

In tune to such things, I can spot that glimmer in her eye, a tiny sparkle indicating that something deeper and more spiritual is stirring within her. Praise October, season of transformations.

“Trick or treat?” I ask.

“It’s up to me?”

“Trick or treat,” I say again.

“But ‘ER’ just started,” she says, squinting toward the TV. “It just started.”

Happy Halloween.

*

Chris Erskine can be reached at [email protected].