When I was a kid, Halloween was serious business. For weeks I counted down to the Big Day, and when it finally arrived, always wondered why we didn't get the day off from school like we did for all of the other major holidays. Didn't they know that we had to prepare? That we had to get out the door in costume at least an hour before dark to cover the territory we'd outlined in order to get the best return on our precious Trick or Treating moments?
These days, as a childless professional…not so much. I'm lucky if I remember to rush out on lunch break to pick up a couple bags of chocolate bars. And don't even get me started on the year I waited until the very last minute, and all they had left on the shelves were sugarless caramel chews. (Though it did give me a whole new sort of kinship with Ms. Sproule from down the block. Maybe those rusty old pennies were the desperate last minute effort of a harried businesswoman, and not her fault at all!)
Yes, tragically, these days I'm lucky if I even remember it's Halloween before I spot the first toddling pirate holding his daddy's hand to cross the street on my way home from work. So you can imagine my surprise when, one bright, sunny morning that just so happened to be October 31, I got rear-ended by a dump truck…and out popped a six and a half foot behemoth of a man, in five inch stilettos and a platinum blonde bob.
Now, I'm not talking about one of those “Wait - is that a dude?” kind of transvestites. No, this guy looked like he could have just staggered drunkenly off a fishing barge after two weeks at sea, having had nothing but a dull scaling knife to help keep his beard growth at bay. “Oh my God,” he said in the gruff voice one might expect from the sideshow strongman, or a medieval stone mason. “Your poor car!”
I just shrugged, too fixated by the biceps his sleeveless silk chemise displayed to care too much about a busted headlight. “It's an old car.”
“Yes - but it's a Saab,” he said, while I just stood there like a half-wit, blinking as he dug through his purse. “Let me write you a check. I just started my hauling business, so I'd really appreciate it if you wouldn't report this to the insurance companies…but let me write you a check. It's the least I can do.”
Well, that made sense enough to me…especially when I saw how much the check was for. I started to say that I didn't think a busted headlight cost twelve hundred bucks…but then I shut my mouth fast. I like to think that I was still in shock, but truth be told, I was already envisioning where I would put my new flat screen T.V.
In fact, in my joy over my unexpected windfall, I'd almost forgotten how weird the fact of the dump truck driving transvestite was in the first place - until I got home and discovered a hillbilly sitting on my front porch.
“Um…hello,” I called out cheerfully, palming my keys between my fingers to make brass knuckles, an automatic reaction to a stranger lots city girls never manage to shake. “Is there something I do for you?”
“I was just about to leave a note,” he lisped from behind his big, buck teeth. “Looks like your estimates were off on your gas meter.” He dug deep in the pocket of his overalls and pulled out a crumpled bill. “Here's what you owe to settle up from last winter.”
I just sighed when I read the amount. Easy come easy go, I suppose. After paying the meter-reading hillbilly, I'd be lucky if I had enough of the transvestite money left to buy myself a latte.
It wasn't until after I'd assured the hillbilly he'd be getting his money soon and letting myself in the front door that I finally managed to put the pieces together. It certainly put the whole bizarre afternoon in a little more context once I realized that people had a reason for dressing funny today. And I couldn't help but appreciate the fact that at least two people in this town had made it to adulthood with the same sense of whimsy that we all shared so effortlessly as children. What a grand thing it is to spend a day in someone else's shoes…even if it's just as you go about business as usual, hauling bricks or reading gas meters.
But just between you and me…I'm still not so sure that hillbilly was in costume.
