One Halloween, a friend using a simple cardboard refrigerator box, some Styrofoam and poster paint, transformed himself into a meticulously rendered container of McDonalds fries. I saw him at a party with his date, a life sized Chicken McNugget. Talk about Happy Meals. It was impressive. I generally have big ideas about my costume – Bill Bradley’s wattles! Soft money! A radioactive pellet in Rudy’s prostate! – but have neither the technical prowess nor time to realize my visions. This year, despite my best millennial resolutions, time is fugiting and once again, I’ll probably just buy a mask.
There are lots of scary ones this year. Help me pick one out. Better yet, I’ll show it to you, you match the mask with the person. Answers below.
1. The pale rubberized cheeks and jowls seem weighted down by BBs of gravitas, though the sneering arch in the upper lip is unaffected. What a pantload. He is number two. A fly fisherman’s hat jauntily attached to the expansive and expensive oily forehead does not dispel the Kabuki sternness of the face. As fries go with McNuggets, this mask goes with his wife’s Lon Cheney mask.
2. One of the great features of this Olympic commentator’s mask is that the hair changes color to match the mood of the night – chlorine green, ecru crew. The lidless eye job is spooky. Wear it and you too can be smug, priggish, and boosterish. For a little extra you can also get gymnastics commentator, Tim Daggett. Warning: safety testers were not able to deactivate the voice box so the whinging goes on like an all night car alarm. And by the way, anybody who can ride the uneven parallel bars after taking an Actifed should get a medal.
3. Actual likeness of the head of the Christian Coalition or best of show Shar-pei? It’ll fool your friends all night.
4. I’m warning you, don’t even go down that aisle. Put it on and one minute you’re just trying to download some pretty harmless nuclear jokes, “Is that plutonium in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?” and the next minute you are in the slammer, solitary, nine months and it doesn’t look good. Contrary to FBI reports, the mask does not glow in the dark.
5. Gray hair matches slabs of gray skin on this mask. Liable to suppress a province if not voted best costume. Wear it and you’ll demand a recount. Wife mask with high black bouffant sold separately.
6. Like the Tobacco Executive mask of a few years back that blew smoke rings but never coughed, this season’s model comes with a rubber nose that blows off at certain speeds and causes you to tip over and dump all your candy on the pavement. They don’t tell you that.
7. Buy one if you must, but, my advice, don’t wear it north of Poughkeepsie. I just returned from visiting my Dad in upstate New York and it is LazioLand up there. I didn’t even dare a late night sign removal trick. Not one sign came down after the first debate when Rick [the P is silent] played the bully. I wish she’d turned from him and said, “Talk to the hand.”
8. Don’t let the blonde hair and tan on this mask fool you. No beach bunny here. Put it on and you’ll develop an unnatural fondness for big rigs and start saying things to your best friend like, “There are rats and there are snakes and you’re a rat.” And “If you were dying of thirst, I’d step right over you.” Then you’ll want a hug from her. Soon you’ll be co-hosting with Regis and being deferential to uber -guest George W. [also stands for wealth and war] Bush.
9. Wear this mask with a darling red sweatshirt. It complements the white hair. But be careful: as the Halloween party wears on, the infra-red coils in the cheeks begin to heat up and veins begin to bulge in the temples. You’ll want to choke people, spit expletives in their face and throw chairs. What a party! If you’re lucky, anger management people [they are everywhere] will talk you down. You’ll be given lots of party favors but asked to leave.
10. This mask is topped with a meringue of white hair. The pearls are a nice touch, but fiery blue eyes shoot lasers at unsuspecting interrogators. When someone near you at a party opines that in the presidential race George W. lowers the bar, you’ll take it personally, start mumbling and strike like a cornered mama bear.
Answers:
1. The Dick Cheney
2. The Bob Costas
3. The Wen Lo Hee
4. The Slobadan Milosevic
5. The Ford/Firestone Executive
6. The Hillary Clinton
7. The Pat Robertson
8. The Survivor Sue
9. The Bobby Knight
10.The Barbara Bush
Kate “I’m registered to vote” Clinton is a humorist.