Halloween

Last year I was the winner of our school's costume contest. I was hoping for a repeat win this year. I knew I couldn't top last year's Hot Cheetos costume. I mean, that stuff is used as currency at school. I thought about being a giant pickle. The kids love those too. They like to put a Hot Cheeto in the top of the pickle and suck on it. Then they drink the orangish greenish juice. It's pretty disgusting.

The only way I could envision a giant pickle costume was stuffing some green garbage bags and trying to wear them. It didn't sound very feasible. I also thought about being Lucas-this tamarind candy that they love. There are too many different varieties to be able to pick one recognizable one.

I decided to be a scantron. In case you are not as school-saavy as I am, a scantron is basically one of those answer sheets you bubble in with a number 2 pencil. I was a little nervous about getting the vote of the below 3rd grade crowd. They are not very familiar with scantrons. To try to win them over, I created a giant number 2 pencil. The costume turned out pretty well. I got tons of great reactions from teachers and students alike.

I thought I had a real chance to win despite my costume's lack of lower grade appeal. The winners were announced at the dance and there was only one winner for individual costume and two winners for group costume. Much to my dismay, I lost to the Joker. His costume was decent but not as out-of-the-box as mine. I mean, Joker was the number one costume in America. Where's the creativity? Those kids don't know creativity when they see it! Several of my kids from last year were around me when the votes were announced. They were all wishing and crossing their fingers that I would win. It was pretty cute. They were definitely disappointed when I lost. One of them tried to console me by saying, "It's okay. You did your best." Hey, at least I was a winner in their eyes, right?