The Halloween Costume I Remember When I Was A kid.

I had very fond memories of Halloween when I was a kid. In some ways when I think back to those days they're fond memories because I remember the good times I had with my late mom. She was the one that used to come out with me and my brother to go trick or treating. I always remember how fun I used to have when I was a kid back then.

My earliest memories of Halloween when I was a kid was always hanging out with my mom going door to door looking for candy. My mom would join in with us because she was really short and could pass off as a kid if she had a mask on. This was extra fun because my mom doesn't eat candy and me and my brother knew this. It only meant one more bag of candy for us to share. We were always so overjoyed to get the candy but thinking back it was also because we were all able to hang out with one another and share in this experience.

You have to consider that this was back in the 80's. There were very little regulations in pretty much anything back then. This included children's masks. They were cheaply made and mass produced so you can pretty much expect that the quality and the danger of these masks was terrible.

I remember not wanting to wear a mask one year because I'd remembered how terrible the plastic masks were. The masks were very thin and the edges were sharp. I'm actually really surprised that costume companies weren't sued earlier due to the hazards of these masks. Kids could literally get cut by these masks and this happened more often than you realize.

Worst of everything was the eye holes for these masks. When I mentioned that the masks were sharp at the edges this meant all over the masks edges. These masks would cut into my eyes when I was wearing them especially since I was a kid I was running around everywhere with the mask on. There was practically no ventilation in these masks so it was really hard to breathe. To add insult to injury there was this really flimsy elastic band that would smoosh my face to the mask. The elastic band was held to the mask with staples. The staple could cut into you or the staple would come loose and the band would snap.

Trying to keep the mask on when the elastic band snapped off was even worse because I'd smoosh the mask even closer to my face which would exasperate the sharp edges cutting into my face and the lack of ventilation for breathing.

Needless to say these masks were the absolute worst and if you've ever worn any of these masks you'll know what I'm talking about. Pretty much all children's Halloween masks in the 80's were made like this.

So this one year I thought that I'd tell my sister that I didn't want to wear the mask. She said fine that's okay she would do some makeup on me that would look just like the mask. I was really excited because I thought that she was able to do just that. It was going to be a relief that I didn't have to wear those stupid masks anymore.

At the time I was obsessed with Transformers. It was the biggest thing back then. I wanted to be Optimus Prime at the time. I even had the mask but I didn't want to wear it because it hurt too much and the elastic band may have snapped off as well.

My sister did her magic and I just naturally assumed it looked like the mask because as she was doing it she was looking at the mask and putting on the makeup. I was excited to get out there with my mom and my brother to trick or treat so I didn't really check out the results when she finished.

We did the trick or treating and had a grand old time. I remembered we had a huge haul that year and it was so much fun. Later on I had totally forgotten that I had makeup on my face until I went to wash my face that night. What I saw was nothing like what I had expected. It was more like a spider web of lines and didn't resemble Optimus Prime at all. I remember being a little pissed but I didn't really care too much because it was all over.

I remember it was one of the better costumes because of all the fun I had with my mom and brother that year. Times that I can never get back but I fondly remember the times. Sometimes the best costumes aren't the best costumes but the costumes you remember great times in.