My husband noticed me because I was a cow. On Halloween. We joined the same college-sponsored mission trip — a door-knocking campaign, which was unhappy because I really don’t believe door-knocking does anything but annoy people these days (I believe that the influence of Christians on the rest of the world happens on a more personal level, for good or for ill) — and we had a brief meeting Halloween night, and I’d worn my cow suit all day and to dinner, and Alex saw me across the cafeteria and wanted to meet me, and was happy when I showed up in his campaign group. So he talked to me by the cups for lemonade, and I ended up fumbling with the cups because . . . well, I was shy and a cute boy was talking to me. Which never ever happened except in my daydreams. And he really was the cutest guy there. All tall and dark and spiffy.

So I really love Halloween. It’s Alex’s favorite holiday too, even though he throws up when he sees people eating candy. Especially gum-chewing, but my dad has that problem too (the smell and the fact that people look like cows chewing their cud), so I’ve never been a gum-chewer. But the other day at the post office, the postal woman was chewing gum, and Alex just couldn’t look at her, but he could smell it so he almost lost his lunch on the sidewalk outside.

Anyway. I wanted to post a picture of all the costumes I want to start collecting, and mention as a side-note that 89% of all costumes you can buy are “sexy.” But 89% of women in America don’t look like models, which you kind of have to be to wear the “sexy” costumes. I mean, what if a middle-aged mom wants to buy a costume that looks nice but not like a potato sack? Or a cheap hooker? That limits her choices to about 5% of costumes available.

Which brings us to modest girls like me. What’s left for us? Especially modest girls who look awful in black (washes me out).

I made a collage of the costumes I like best, the ones that are modest enough for me actually to wear and in a cut that might flatter a real, everyday female instead of a stick-figure with cleavage. (Have you seen that episode of Bewitched? I think it’s “Samantha the Dressmaker.” She tells this Parisian fashion designer that he needs to stop designing dresses for skinny models and start designing dresses for the average woman. So he designs dresses for the women in Samantha’s neighborhood and uses them as models and they look very nice. ^_^)

I think I really dream of looking as pretty and sophisticated as that girl in Hocus Pocus, where her parents have this big fancy costume party on Halloween. I mean, I hate big parties, because I hate crowds, but I like the idea of having friends and family over and decorating and dressing up so when kids trick-or-treat they can actually see that “Hey, a pirate is giving me candy! Yay!” instead of some dumpy chick in footie pajamas (yes, I’m happy to say I have Garfield footies) with no makeup on.