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It’s called a costume

The Guelph Mercury, 10/25/2008

Hike up those skirts and break out the skimpy rubber suits, three sizes too small. It’s Halloween.

Scientists will tell you most guys know only three things about young women — they are, generally speaking:

1) soft;

2) nice-smelling; and

3) planning to wear something skanky on Oct. 31.

Oh, and also generally speaking, probably mad at you. So I guess that’s four things.

But back to my point. A warm-blooded fellow could get whiplash just standing at the corner of Windham and Macdonell streets next Friday night.

He’ll see whole armies of sultry nurses, scantily-clad pirates, Playboy bunnies, racy angels, lacy devils, sexy police officers and salty zombies.

There will be busloads of naughty schoolgirls, nuns and referees running, naughtily, amok. It’ll look like career day at a strip club.

It will be a sight to behold — hundreds of women all dressed as Paris Hilton, each one trying to out-undress the other.

But while most guys will admire it, they probably won’t understand it. They will stand around and watch, wondering what the heck is going in.

So, women, if you’re planning on dressing like a strumpet for one night of the year because it makes you happy, then by all means carry on. Consider this messenger the crotchety old neighbour who hands out raisins to trick or treaters.

But if you’re doing it to impress us hairy brutes, save yourself the trouble. We’ll be fine. Besides, we know where the Sears catalogues are stashed.

Most men will admit all those skimpy Halloween costumes are unnecessary. It’s a bit like putting bacon on a medium-rare steak. We don’t need any extra incentive to chase you around like sailors in port after six-months at sea.

So, in honour of Halloween, I’ll let you in on a little secret — a man will notice a woman whether she’s wearing a burlap sack or a HAZMAT suit.

She could walk down the street wearing three sleeping bags, and we’d still find a way to ogle her

It doesn’t matter what she wears. We’re already picturing her naked, anyway.

We spend vast amounts of our waking hours doing just that — honing our powers of imagination — because we hope, one day, we’ll get to see some women undress. Then we will compare the completed building to the architect’s rendering, as it were. That’s just what we do.

That is why we are OK with engaging in all sorts of questionable activities, like attending dinner parties, scrapbooking, w atching figure skating, shopping at Ikea, entering Bath and Body Works stores, or talking about our feelings.

We are hedging our bets that real, non-imagined nudity will happen. Just don’t tell our friends what we had to do to get there.

But I’ve never been a woman, so maybe I’ll never understand this need to preach to the converted.

Or why the costumes need to get tighter and shorter every year. Not that I’m complaining.

Halloween has always done strange things to girls.

A hundred years ago, unmarried women would sit in dark rooms and stare at a mirror on Oct. 31, believing the face of their future husband would appear in the reflection.

If the dames were destined to die before marriage, a skull would appear, or so the legend has it.

The men, meanwhile, were probably hiding in the closet, hoping to sneak a peek.

So for this year’s Halloween, why not surprise all us cavemen? Give us something to guess about. Try on what sports guys call a throwback jersey — something from a simpler time, when Halloween meant fully dressed ghosts and goblins, vampires and UNICEF collections.

When Oct. 31 was about dressing up, not dressing down, and leaving something to the imagination.

Trust us. We’ll still notice you.