I was watching “The Jamie Kennedy Experience”, trying to understand if I had dropped my funny bone in some gutter or whether it had been anaesthetized by the show’s patently laborious humor. I found myself wishing instead that “Kids in the Hall” was still on the air when my friend turned to me and asked:

“So, got any plans for Halloween?”

Suddenly, I felt a resistance much like I used to feel when my mother would suggest we go down to Angelo the Barber and get that ‘mop’ of a haircut down to a more respectable buzz-cut size. Now, last year I went to the Mod Club’s Halloween bash and I must admit it was a pretty amazing experience. People were decked out in just about any costume you could imagine-- from historical figures like Stalin and Lenin to a costume that looked as if Sauron from Lord of the Rings had made his suit of armor entirely out of glow-sticks. Yes, glow-sticks. It was truly, truly amazing.

Yet, the thought of dishing out twenty bucks for some club and then more money for a costume just was not doing it for me. It’s not that making one wasn’t an option. I just didn’t want to DO it this year. So I as tried justifying this to my friend, who looked at me as if I was dead inside, I thought, (putting my glass of Omega-3-rich Soy milk down) am I too old for Halloween?

So I made a list of:

1. You would rather call it an early night instead of staying out late trick-or-treating… and it’s a Friday.
2. You insist on washing the pumpkin and all the tools used to carve it outside with a bleach solution just to make sure you don’t catch ‘the E.Coli’
3. You argue that All-Hallows-Eve could be better-spent indoors trying out those new Martha Stewart scary-cookie recipes.
4. You prefer to watch Mike Myers in ‘Austin Powers’ on Halloween night, rather than the more appropriate masked killer Mike Myers in ‘Halloween’
5. People compliment you on your wart-nosed witch mask when you don’t have the heart to tell them-- it’s not a mask.
6. Trying to put on the too-tight leather pants of your ‘Crow’/Eric Draven costume from your high-school days causes you to pass out from the lack of circulation (which, incidentally causes you to rule out that leather dominatrix corset).
7. You figure that a costume made entirely of reflective tape is a ‘cool and safe alternative’
8. You still think going out as Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader is remotely interesting to anybody
9. After running up the stairs to your first house, instead of yelling “trick-or-treat!” you ask breathlessly, “do you have a home defibrillator?!”
10. While stealing a nap on your front porch, you wake up to costumed children saying, “Cool dead-guy decoration!” as they poke you with a stick.