Problem Solved

Larry attempted to construct a wearable tornado for Brian yesterday. Not wanting to get in the way, I took Theo out in the car with his brand-new driver's permit (that's another post - I haven't gotten to the point where I can talk about it yet.) Anyway, we came home, 2 hours and one undented car later (whew!), to find Larry and Brian gone, and a heap of tangled plastic fencing lying on the living room floor. I correctly deduced that Plan A had failed and that they had gone off to Home Depot to purchase materials for Plan B (have I mentioned that we spend more on Halloween than we do on Christmas around here?). Anyway, they returned bearing....weed barrier. Yup. I must have looked a little concerned, because Larry said, "See? No problem - we'll just wrap this stuff around him and we'll have a tornado!" Okay.

10 minutes later, poor little Brian (peering uncertainly out of the small space left for his face) looked as though he was wearing a burka. Or maybe he was trying to dress like a mummy wearing a burka. "Don't worry," Larry reassured me. "Once we tape a few plastic animals and some toy cars to it, it will look like a tornado." At this point I had to say, "Um, no, it will look like someone wearing a burka with toy animals and cars taped to it. And someone will think we are making some weird political statement about American involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. So, I don't think so..."

Apparently, this was just the out Larry was looking for, because he sort of threw his hands up in the air and exclaimed, "Fine! You figure something out then!" May I just point out here that Larry was the one who encouraged Brian in his tornado imaginings? I wanted the kid to be a bat, a costume we already have.

Are irreconcilable costume differences ever stated as grounds for a marital breakup? I wouldn't be surprised.

Anyway, I dashed out to Michael's for a dollar's worth of posterboard and we cut out sort of a tornado shape to hang around Brian's neck and explained to him that we would glue the toy animals and cars onto that, and that's when he started to cry. And he asked why we couldn't make the costume the way he wanted to do it. Which was, it turns out, devastatingly simple. And, no, I don't know why neither of us asked him in the first place.

So on Wednesday night, Brian will go out happily attired in the aforementioned bat costume, with cotton balls taped all over the hood (it's a cloud, see?) and animals and cars and such taped all over the cape/wings and he'll be able to twirl around and pretend he is a tornado, and that is all he ever wanted to do in the first place. And, boy, do we feel stupid.

Maybe I can e-bay the plastic fencing and the weed barrier, and buy Larry some beer with the money. Then maybe he'll start talking to me again.