For RDP Monday: TAG

Deciding what to be for Halloween was a very big thing in my family.

We had our share of Princesses and Astronauts and monsters – of course.

But every year me and my cousins would spend hours on the phone ( and by on the phones I mean landlines ) because one of us had to give up our plastic mask and plastic Halloween costume ( which we dearly loved ) in order to dress up as-

Death.

Someone had to take the role on because let’s face WE KNEW as hardcore Halloween devotees Death needed to have a presence at Halloween and it usually fell to me or my eldest cousin to take it on-not that we wanted to do it- because as far as costumes went Death wore a boring costume and those robes were heavy but we could never come up with a good argument to get out of it.

After being tagged, we would console ourselves with the knowledge we got to carry a big scary looking scythe that we had to drag alone the ground with one hand  while trying to balance our treat bag with the other and we knew that at least we would look kind of frightening as we struggled from house to house.

So off and on over the years my Mom would ask me ( or my Aunt would ask my Cousin )

what we were going to be for Halloween and we would sadly reply:

” Death. ”

” Oh. So you got the short straw. Well maybe next year you’ll get to dress up for Halloween instead of not getting to dress up. ”

” Maybe ” we would say ” maybe. “