Halloween Costume Crisis!

WE were at Walmart the other day looking for those 50-pound sacks of Great Value mac & cheese when the twins, Breanna and Brandon, saw the Halloween aisle. Technically, they’re not twins nor even related and they’re a year apart, but the foster agency dropped them off on the same day (and I can only remember so many damn birthdays).

Anyway, Breanna’s little face lighted up when she saw this costume…

…so I bought it for her, but I cautioned her, just as you would, “You don’t just go as a witty leopard because the costume’s ‘pretty’ and you ‘like kitty cats.’  There’s a certain expectation that goes with such an outfit.”

I gave her a list of eighty or so clever bon mots, cutting remarks and pithy aphorisms from Dorothy Parker that I pulled off the internet, sent her to the nursery to study them, and told her I’d begin drilling her on them the next morning.

Seems the five-year-old bit off more than she could chew – turns out she hasn’t even learned to read yet. Obviously, there’s no way in hell she could pull off a “witty leopard.” She began crying hysterically despite my assurance she had nothing to worry about, that instead we’d throw a sheet over her with a couple of eyeholes cut out (which was somewhat fitting because that godawful wailing is perfect for a ghost).

Little Brandon did his best to console her. “There are only two tragedies in life,” he told her. “One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it – Oscar Wilde.”

So guess who gets to go as our witty leopard!

Posted by Ted on September 19, 2013, 11:07 PM.