Happy halloween!

My first halloween experience was in California as a seven-year-old new immigrant. My father convinced my brother and I to dress in our traditional Korean outfits (hanbok) and go trick-or-treating. Woo hoo! I couldn’t believe that I got free candy for wearing a costume and ringing people’s door bells. America was great, in my mind! I also got a lot of compliments for my “cute little outfit”. In fact, since then, I’ve never had as many compliments with any of my subsequent halloween costumes — nor have I had as much halloween fun.

Later, I wore more of the traditional scary halloween costumes until I hit my teenage years, at which time I thought I was done with the kids’ holiday for good. That was, until I met my wife Shari. When we first started dating, she made me dress as Bam-Bam so she could be Pebbles. The only problem was that my “skirt” was so short that the club we were at made me put on my pants over the costume. Embarrassing.

Last year, I had the privilege of being Grumpy because she wanted to dress as Snow White. Oh yeah, that was a lot of fun. The year before, she wanted to wear a blond wig and be a “trophy wife”, so I got to be the older man.

Yup, for some reason, halloween has deteriorated to one of my least favorite holidays to prepare for. However, once I’m out and see the other ridiculous outfits worn by people, whom I had thought were reasonable at one time, I do have some fun. Mix that with alocohol and there are some good memories.

This year, however, I’ve put my foot down on our halloween outfits. This year, I will not be an assessory to my wife’s costume. I’ve chosen our outfits. I’ll be at See Sound celebrating a friend’s birthday.

Happy and safe halloween everyone.