I grew up in such a big family
that the kids in my family were divided
into two major groups,
the big kids and the little kids.
And I'm the second oldest so I was one of the big kids.
And I was actually quite proud of that
because it was much cooler to be a big kid
than a little kid.
We big kids were innovators and leaders
and we did super cool things like spy on neighbors
and cheat at monopoly, whereas the little kids
mostly just sat around, you know,
eating paste and
shitting themselves.
So much more cachet in the big kid group.
One of our favorite activities as big kids
was scaring the little kids and I'm not really sure
why we liked doing it as much as we did
but we did it a lot
and we were actually quite good at it.
I was probably the best at it.
And I'm, I'm proud of that and
I'm actually better at scaring little kids-
I'm still really good at it actually,
I'm better at scaring little kids
than I even knew that I was.
And case in point
1967
When I was eight years old, my brother Peter,
who was six years old, and also a big kid,
and I were exploring some dark, you know,
unnavigated corner in our basement
and we came across this box and in the box
were these two horrifying masks
that we had never seen before.
One of a witch and one of werewolf
and they were so realistic
they weren't like grotesquely exaggerated
and comical, like halloween masks,
they looked real, like they looked like
a real witch and a real werewolf.
And as we held these things in our hands
and felt the weight and impornt of them,
we both simultaneously had the exact same idea
which was, these would be awesome
for scaring the little kids, you know.
And as we let that feeling kind of wash over us,
we realized that if we were strategic
and smart about it, we could reach new ground,
we could go beyond scaring and actually
downright terrify the little kids.
And so that was our goal and we set about,
I was actually the leader, I know it's bragging
but I was the leader in this
and we set about the next three days.
We took three days to put this plan together
because we didn't want to do something ordinary
and waste the potential of these masks.
So we didn't want to just put them on,
like wearing our pajamas
and jump out from behind the couch.
We wanted to transform ourselves
into an actual witch and an actual werewolf.
So we sourced unrecognizable clothing
from our parents closets
and assembled the most amazing costumes.
Actually, we prefer the word disguises
because costumes is sort of, you know,
doesn't do it justice.
We even like found hand coverings and shoes
that nobody would ever associate with us.
And we put them all in a box
and once we had assembled all the pieces
of our disguises, the plan was this;
That Saturday night, as soon as the house was dark,
Peter was going to sneak into my room,
we were going to put on our disguises
and we were going to creep up the hallway
into our little brother, Charlie and Tony's room,
who were five and four at the time
and we were going to loom over their beds
and awaken them from slumber and terrify them.
And this was such a delicious prospect.
It was actually really good that it took three days
because we really got to stretch out the anticipation.
And my favorite part about this plan
in retrospect is that that's where it stopped
like it never occurred to us to think about
what we might want to do once our parents
had been awakened by our screaming brothers
in the middle of the night.
We just it never even occurred to us.
I mean, we would just get to that point
where they were so terrified
and we would dissolve into sinister laughter
and, you know, we'd wipe our hands together
it was just like perfect why go anywhere else?
This was Nirvana!
So anyway, the night finally came,
the night came, and everything at first went as planned.
The house was quiet, Peter snuck into my room,
we started putting on our disguises
and I have to tell you, we looked exactly
like a witch and a werewolf.
I mean, we scared ourselves
we'd look at each other and just be like
alarmed at how frightening we were.
And the pièce de résistance,
the best part of both of our costumes
was the scarf that I found
that was navy blue with white polka dots.
And I'm 57 years old it's been almost 50 years
and I still remember the scarf
you know, it was so brilliant.
Because it covered the top of the mask
and it covered my telltale hairline
and I tied it over the top of my head.
And not only did it serve to disguise these
you know, recognizable aspects of the disguise,
but it looked exactly like the kind of headgear
an actual which would wear,
so it was super true to form.
And, anyway, we were all done and we started walking
up the black and white checkered hallway.
And with every step we took,
we got deeper and deeper into character
when we were lifting our hands higher and higher,
and we got to their door and we slowly opened it.
And I started cackling and Peter started growling
and all of a sudden, this huge looming dark figure
arose from Tony's bed and turn to us
and said you two get out of here right now!
And it was our mother, who had apparently
fallen asleep while reading Tony a story.
Well, I don't have to tell you
what a code red situation this was.
It was bad and there was there was nothing to do
except run back to our rooms, strip the costumes,
jump under our covers and pull the blankets up.
I mean, we're talking wooden spoon material here.
This was bad!
So we were the ones who ended up
getting terrified right?
waiting for her to come in and exact our punishment.
But she didn't, she didn't come in.
And then the next day, we thought,
well, we better tiptoe around this
and not mention it because she has forgotten
and we don't want to remind her.
Nothing happened the next day.
So we got away with it, except
for the one piece of important information
was that these beautiful costumes were wasted.
And they were so realistic and so perfect
and they did not realize their full potential.
Or so I thought because three years later,
when I got punished for something I did not do
and I did not deserve to be punished for
I had gathered my younger siblings around me
and I was holding court talking about mom's mean,
mom's unfair, I don't like mom
and they were all listening to me
and my little brother Tony, who was then seven
piped up and said, mom's brave!
And I said, what are you talking about mom's brave?
And he said, mom's brave!
One night A long time ago,
a witch and a werewolf came into our room,
and mom told them get out!
And they ran away and she wasn't even scared