Thursday, October 27, 2011

The Opposite Of Scary...

A couple of months ago my 9 year old daughter told me that she wanted to dress up as a Cowgirl for Halloween.

I'm all for letting my kids choose their costumes every year. As a parent it gives me great pride to to watch my children exercise their creative muscles. These costumes are a way for them to express themselves through their imagination. For a parent it offers an opportunity to peer through a small window to their mind. Dressing up is a form of role playing. It's an outlet for them to live out their wildest fantasies in a safe and encouraging environment. It's a healthy way to escape the ordinary. This is what Halloween is all about.

But a Cowgirl?

















Cowgirl pictured above is not my daughter.

I don't understand.

As far as I know, she is not a fan of John Wayne movies. She has never been to a dude ranch and there hasn't been a Roy Rogers chain in our area for over two decades. (consequently, how awesome were their bacon cheeseburgers? And don't even get me started on their fried chicken)

If I'm being completely honest here, I have to admit that I was a tad disappointed when she broke the news.

A Cowgirl isn't even scary. It's actually the opposite of scary. I just Googled "opposite of scary" and it said, "not scary". This is true. A Cowgirl is not scary.

Do kids even care about Cowgirls anymore?

I mean, only strippers and kids that model Cowgirl costumes dress up as Cowgirls.

You order a Cowgirl outfit on the Internet for your wife on your one year anniversary. Or an alien woman costume. Captain Kirk loved alien women. He was constantly bedding down alien women.

I could understand if it was 1973 and she was obsessed with the movie Westworld. Or even if she was obsessed with the movie Westworld now. I don't think she has ever seen Westworld. Yul Brynner died before she was born and Richard Benjamin is completely irrelevant to her generation.

When I was a kid my mother spent three hours applying makeup to my face so I could dress up like Peter Criss from KISS.


















You know what? I wound up looking like a fucking bunny rabbit. There was no bunny rabbit in KISS. I was humiliated.

Now that's scary.

A few weeks ago my wife went ahead and took my daughter shopping for her costume and she wound up abandoning the Cowgirl idea. When she came home and announced this to me I tried to contain my excitement.

She made me sit down and told me to close my eyes.

I heard her frantically tearing the package apart and fumbling to get the costume situated.

I was relieved. My daughter was creative after all. It was all a misunderstanding; a momentary lapse of reason on her part. Who could blame her? She's only 9 and she's finding her own way.

She told me to open my eyes.

As fate would have it...

A God damn Cat.

Whiskers and Cat ears and a tail.

As I sat there and looked at her cute little Cat face, smiling from little Cat ear to little Cat ear, I realized how silly my expectations were.

My name is Jason and my 9 year old daughter is dressing up as a Cat for Halloween and I'm OK with that.

For fuck's sake, she looks more like Peter Criss than I did.