Never had a store-bought costume for my Halloweens

A friend of mine told me recently she’d been invited to a Halloween event by her young grandson.

Naturally she’d headed straight to a seasonal pop-up store and purchased a costume so she could be a cool grandma and go as a “Minecraft creeper.”

Since I was unfamiliar with both “Minecraft” and “creeper” (at least in a context for which a grandmother would attend an elementary Halloween party), I turned to the internet to learn more.

I failed to gain a usable understanding of Minecraft, but I now know that the creeper is a green and boxy-looking character. I am reasonably sure I’d recognize one if it found its way to my door on Halloween.

When it comes to costumes, I am clueless at recognizing most of the characters our little ghosts and goblins will be portraying this week.

The truth is I’ve been left in the dust when it comes to pop culture.

Maybe I never made it to the starting line.

Best as I remember, my brothers and I never had store-bought costumes.

When Halloween rolled around, we rummaged through the family closets and came away with treasures like an abandoned pair of overshoes with broken buckles, a dusty and crumpled felt hat, and that wig our mother bought in the 1960s but never actually wore.

I remember going as a gypsy in one of my mother’s old skirts, my shoulders wrapped in a shawl made from a scarf, with an upside-down plastic Kool-Aid pitcher as my crystal ball.

Any one of us could be a rodeo clown on short notice, with our dad’s boots, one of his long-tailed shirts, a pair of his Levis belted under our armpits, and bright red cheeks painted on with our mom’s lipstick.

One memorably painful year, my brothers and I wore discarded burlap cottonseed meal sacks with additional holes hacked out for our heads and arms so we could be a trio of hobos.

Our mom tried hard to wash the scratchiness out of those sacks. Trust me. You can’t.

The racks of costumes that cram the aisles as soon as the back-to-school merchandise is relegated to clearance grow more mysterious to me each year, but one thing never changes: The excitement of little kids (and possibly grandmas) picking out their “disguise” for the season.

Honestly, that’s what it’s all about.

I’ll bet you a plastic pumpkin full of candy that my friend’s Minecraft creeper costume is going to be way more comfortable than those itchy feed sacks that my hobo brothers and I wore.

Maybe I’ll be a Minecraft creeper, too, whatever the heck that is.

Trick or treat!

Betty Williamson prefers Snickers, in case she rings your doorbell. Reach her at:

[email protected]