Halloween Costumes - Michael Ian Black stand-up comedy)

Three big dates on the child calendar. You know, there's birthdays, and there's Christmas, and there's Halloween. And a couple of years ago was the first year that my kids were old enough to come up with their own Halloween costumes. And as a parent, I could not wait to see what they would be for Halloween, because kids have amazing imaginations. You know what I mean? They could be anything for Halloween. Here's what my kids decided to be. My son decided to go as a pirate. My daughter decided to go as a princess. The least creative costumes in the world. Not for the first time, I was incredibly disappointed with my children. No, because if they had just put any more thought into their costumes, they could have been cool costumes. Like, if my son had been like, I want to be a pirate, but I want to be a Somali pirate, I would have been like, that's a cool costume. My daughter would have been like, I want to be a princess. I want to be a Jewish-American princess. I would have been like, cool costume. You know what the kid next door went as? A cat's tail. Not a cat. A cat's tail. When he came to our house and explained that he was not a pipe cleaner, which also would have been excellent, but was in fact a cat's tail, I did not give that child candy. I gave him a hug and I wrote him a check for $100. The next year was better. Not great, but better. Halloween comes, I say to my son, what are you going to be for Halloween? He goes, I'm going to be Frankenstein. And I say, okay. Halloween comes, he walks downstairs, he's got like an old suit jacket of mine on, old suit pants, his face is painted green, you know, he's got like a makeup scar across his forehead, you know, and he's doing this. And I look at him and I say, what are you supposed to be? He goes, I'm Frankenstein. I said, no, you're not. You are the creature. Frankenstein was the doctor who invented the creature. It's a common literary mistake, but you just made it, my friend. Go upstairs and change. And my kids are always like, what are you going to be for Halloween, dad? What are you going to be for Halloween, dad? I'm like, I don't want to dress up for Halloween. Well, you got to dress up for Halloween, dad. You got to. I'm like, you know what I'm going to be for Halloween this year, kids? I'm going to be a grown ******* man. How about that? Hey, Mike, I love your SpongeBob costume. **** you, I am not going to do that. Because now that's what you have to do as a parent in the suburbs where I live. You have to chaperone your children everywhere they go because everybody's so afraid that their precious little angel is going to get abducted or something. How egotistical can you get? Oh, your kid is so special. Everybody wants your kid. Come on. When I was growing up, when we went trick-or-treating, there was no like parental supervision. Like we would get home, we would put on our Halloween costumes, we would go out trick-or-treating and we would be gone for days. Like we might not get back until Thanksgiving, but it's not like that anymore. Like you have to chaperone your kids everywhere you go. And so the way that the adults in my community have learned to deal with this is that they have turned Halloween into a booze cruise. So one of the parents will fill one of their children's little red wagons with alcohol and we will trundle it through the neighborhood as our children go door-to-door collecting candy for us to eat later that night when they go to bed. And like I said, I don't really drink. So, you know, I just drink, you know, a couple of slugs of wine or something and I am hammered. Like I am just out of my head immediately. I just have to smell it. And I'm just like, what's happening? You know? And that would be okay, I guess, except that I get emotional, you know? And then my kid comes back from a house with like, look what I got. It's some piece of like shitty ghetto candy that I don't want. And I'm like, what is this? Daddy doesn't eat chuckles. You go back there and you tell them you want a Snickers bar. You go back to that house and you tell them you want a motherfucking Snickers bar. You know, he's crying. I'm crying, you know? And then I see this little figure emerging from the shadows holding a Snickers bar and I go up and I'm like, I'm sorry. Shh, shh, shh, shh, I'm sorry. You know, stroking his head, shh. Then I realize it's not my kid that I'm hugging. Very difficult to explain that away, you guys. This last year was probably the best in terms of creativity. Halloween comes and I say to my son, what are you gonna be for Halloween? He goes, I'm gonna be Dr. Coconut. I think to myself, what the **** is Dr. Coconut? So I say to him, what the **** is Dr. Coconut? He goes, I'm gonna get a big coconut costume and for him, that's a given. You can walk into any Halloween supply shop and be like, I'd like to see your coconut costumes and a man will be like, right this way, sir. So I was like, I'll just get a big coconut costume, then I'm gonna put on a stethoscope. Dr. Coconut. And I have to think about that for a second. And then I say something to him that I've never said before and in all likelihood will never say again. I said, I love you.