Halloween's Revenge
In my youth, which I thoroughly enjoyed, my Halloween costume specialty was the cardboard box. I used a rectangular cardboard box for at least three distinct costumes: a gas pump, a robot, and a block o' cheese. The robot was exactly what you would expect; I wrapped the box in aluminum foil, added a few pieces of construction paper sporting circuit-like designs, and poked my arms out through two holes cut in the front. I am more proud of the block o' cheese because even though it was the same essential set-up only with the box covered in yellow construction paper and bereft of any other labeling, what in the hell kind of a costume is a black o' cheese? I was quite proud of that little innovation, which I one day hope to revisit as a wedge of cheese. But the cardboard zenith was the gasoline pump. Honestly, what in Bog's name was going through my fifth grade mind? I covered a box in aluminum foil, posted three different octane values across the chest area (87,89, and 93, if I remember correctly), and attached a flexible old vacuum cleaner extension tube to the left side.

All day, as my elementary school made a big deal out of Halloween and marches each class around the whole school so that everyone saw everyone else's costume, I was asked, "Are you a robot?" to which I would proudly reply, "Nope, I'm a gas pump!" I beamed all day, even though more often than not people looked at me as if I was mad. That night, as my Cub Scout pack (though I may have been a Webelo by that point) gathered in the school cafeteria, my costume was honored with the "Most Unusual Costume" award. My best friend had used four or five enormous cardboard boxes to construct a crude tank costume, a lumbering wall of cardboard out of which we could hardly see and which he could hardly maneuver. As we plundered the neighborhood on Halloween night, he had a difficult time carrying his pillowcase full of candy, but the beauty of that tank costume made the sacrifice worthwhile. Back at the pack meeting, he garnered the "Most Creative Costume" award and he more than deserved the recognition. His tank costume was fantastic.

This turned out to be quite a formative experience for tow-headed little Mike (my hair did not degenerate from beautiful blonde to boring brown until verdammt puberty). I was quite proud of my Most Unusual Costume award, but why had my gasoline pump received Most Unusual while the magnificent tank was Most Creative? While certainly unusual, wasn't a gasoline pump also pretty darned creative? "Creative" is an almost universally positive word. When people call a kid "creative," they are praising him. Though at the time my thoughts on the matter were embryonic and it would be several more years until grew comfortable with the notion that I was strange and would simply never fit in with most of my peers, even then I recognized that while "unusual" did not have an inherently negative meaning, it was most often used with negative connotations. If a child is called "unusual," odds are he isn't being praised. A tank was certainly unusual, but it was the good kind of unusual; so, it was praised as "creative." A gasoline pump was, if I may toot my own horn, certainly creative, but is was the bad kind of creative; so, it was... not by any means condemned, but not exactly praised either, as "unusual."

I also found out that I really like winning awards. If you've never won an award, and no, universally distributed "Participant" ribbons do not count, I highly recommend the experience. Quite a boost to the ol' ego. Woot!

Other Halloween costume highlights: I was Superman, though I was too young to actually remember this and am aware of it only through my mother's photo albums. (Looking back, it is really hard to believe I didn't start reading comic books until I was twenty years-old.) Before the cardboard box mania, I was a Martian, replete with springs for antennae, silver overalls, and green face paint. This was the one and only time in my life I've painted my face. (I think I missed the boat in college; I wasn't a face paint guy, but I should have been! I'm temperamental, I'm a shameless showman, and I'm fat! Why oh why wasn't I shirtless at late November football games with half my torso painted blue and other half maize?) Years later, after the end of the box era, my best friend and I dressed as Bob & Doug MacKenzie and prowled the streets saying, "Trick or treat, eh!" Through our youths we hadn't worn matching costumes, but towards the end we knew that our trick-or-treating days were numbered and so resolved to make the most of the last couple go-'rounds. My senior year of high school (his freshman year), for our last-ever candy-amassing expedition, we dressed in our best suits and went door to door as pallbearers, carrying a shoebox made up as a coffin for a goldfish (no goldfish were harmed in the making of the coffin prop). Some of our neighbors were amused, but most looked at us as if we each had two heads. Bog, I love weirding out the squares. It would have been a little too high concept to have labeled the coffin as containing the mortal remains of two childhoods full of Halloweens; thus, a Christian burial for a goldfish. If there is one thing every truly great Halloween costume has in common, though, it is none-too-subtle philosophical subtext.

Tomorrow: Captain Thumbs-Up rides again!

The Stars My Destination
Solar panel? Solar panic! Riplink! I tell you, putting our faith in the Accursed Sun will be the death of us all. The Sun is a mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace! It pumps out lethal radiation! Without Earth's magnetosphere and our pleasantly thick atmosphere, the dastardly Sun's death rays would have destroyed us all years ago! (This argument is patently ridiculous, as without the magnetosphere and atmosphere to protect our lovely planet, the Sun would have prevented life as we know it from ever arising.) Don't trust the Sun! It would sell its own mother for a chance to destroy Mankind!

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
The Puppini Sisters, "Panic" from Betcha Bottom Dollar (T.L.A.M.)