I had a Dream . . . Nightmare . . .

I had a dream Halloween night that I was trick or treating at Gaylord street in Washington Park. Hundreds of kids were working their way through the candy lines at each of the stores. I was struck by the epiphany that all of these kids were wearing store bought costumes. G.I. Joe this, Snake Eyes that, Spiderman, Darth Vader, Clone Troopers, Elmos etc. etc.

Everything stopped. The wind stopped rustling through the trees and time froze. The kids all took off their store bought masks revealing that each one beneath their mask was a child zombie. It was an outdoor mall filled with 3 foot tall souless zombies. For some strange reason they all were staring at me. I was waiting for one of them to say "brains" and then the rest of them to chime in, "brains, brains." Instead they just started chasing me like the zombies they were, but they were chanting, "I want my two dollars." I was Loyd in the movie Better Off Dead. Of course, I tried to run and as they were malling me I woke up from this nightmare.

I now think back to this dream wondering how powerful is an industry that has stolen the imaginations of our children so that they can exploit the profit margins of their products. How lazy have we become that we don't help our kids to make their own costumes. I guess we're all just too damn busy. Dumping more money into the Star War's franchise at Target is a lot easier then actually having to think or do anything. I guess that's why the prefabbed costumes are a huge industry. They're selling what we're buying.