Oh c'mon. No points for creativity?

Sounds like somebody's son lost in the Halloween costume contest:

But that was only the half of it. There were kids I saw in costume this Halloween, and what I saw was even scarier than the empty streets.

I'm talking about the girls dressed like whores, literally, and the boys dressed like gynecologists (I kid you not), about parents who think it is either funny or clever to help their kids dress "up" as pot doctors and even "orgasm donors." (I promised to protect my sources on this one, but believe me; I couldn't make this up.) Sex sickos aren't funny, and sadly, they aren't pretend either. If it's OK to dress up as one, does that mean it's OK to grow up to be one? If you can dress like a pot doc, does that mean you can go to one?

I don't always know what my kids are wearing before they leave the house, but I try. I certainly don't make costumes for them that I'd be embarrassed to read about in my local paper. In one classroom of 14-year-olds that I heard about, it was one of the mothers who took credit for making the lab coats for the sex fiends and the pot doc. Dr. Frankenstein would have been fine. An "orgasm donor" is not fine.

I've been teaching a religion class CCD for an hour, one night a week. My thinking was, if the kids have to be there -- pretty much parental designation at that age, no? -- why not volunteer to teach them something? If not me, who? So each week, I see about 9 or 10 of them -- nice kids, funny. H.S. freshmen, from two local schools. They've got the eyes open to the hypocrisies and failures of the world, that's for sure. And that sometimes plays out as wicked humor, mean as heck but in the good-hearted young way, not so much in the bitter out-to-hurt- others, jealous ways of those continually grasping and gathering, yet still falling short because of emptiness, lack of contentment. You know what I mean.

The adult world has invaded their youth, why deny that? And these kids, these newfound consciousnesses, if you will, are fresher and more sensitive to the poor example lots of America is currently setting.

So let them have their fun, I say. No more costume help from the parents, and no judgements from above either. Let them have their play and pretend, their laughter at the dour and humorless world they'll inherit when we're done making the world so safe via the War on Drugs, the War on Islam, the War on Sex, or whatever current crusade.

Stories like these make me wonder about trade-offs. You know what? Kids still do trick-o-treat like those days of olde. I'm not naming places but check out the exoburbs and rural small towns in America's upper heartland. They still have autumn bonfires too. I know a kid, second-grader, went as Davy Crockett this year. How All-American is that? Course, he lives in a place where it's still ok to bring a toy gun replica to school. Guns still have a peaceful purpose. And the kids do still travel outside in packs; it seems the places where the adults have crammed themselves in tightly are the places where there's so much predator worry. Isn't that interesting -- huddling for security... or not?

Generally, we get what we choose -- even though it's not always what we bargain for. And probably we need to lighten up a bit, knowing that just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it's not out there.

Leave the kids out of it, I say -- their time for choosing will come soon enough. In our class, we're still talking about carrying over what we learn on Sunday to what makes the world go round Monday through Friday. Not just ideals, but practices. They'll be ready, and I suspect they'll be laughing with us and at us all along the way.

Because in a complex world of sperm donors -- where some kids grow up to learn of half-siblings sharing their DNA but not their families-- you're going to have some bright light say he'd rather just be an "orgasm donor". Good luck, pal! And if you've got a land with pharmaceutical companies advertising pills for every patient complaint under the sun, well then you've got to admit the future pot docs; it's only natural.

Halloween is about playing with the complexities, laughing at the absurdities to understand what daily life has become. And some are blessed with the simplicity of just figuring out how much to freeze, what to do with the rest of the leftovers, and how you clean a coon-skin cap. Come join us.