The Unavoidable Truth

So last night I was with my fiance heading out for dinner when we saw a group of people in costumes walking down the street.  I wish I could say that it was to be expected due to the Halloween holiday, but sadly, it was to be expected because that's what people in downtown Chicago do.  Every day I go to work, I see people dressed up as "business men/women" and "students" and "homeless people."  It's fun for the first few months, but after awhile, you think to yourself, give it up!  Especially all those homeless people.  They lay it on thick.  Always asking for change for food/bus fair/clothes/investing.  I get it guys.  Nice costume, but leave me alone, I have to go tend to a blind lady.

Last night was different though, there was a lot more variety.  I will attribute that to Halloween.  Most of it was pretty standard fare, girls dressed as nuns/various-other-uptight-prudish-women, guys dressed up as women dressed as women who don't know how to dress like women because they're really men.  The usual.  But then there was Death.  Normally Death is a standard outfit, but this guy took it a step further.  He was on stilts.  This made him approximately 10 feet tall.  Awesome.  Or so I thought.

Sure, a 10 foot tall Death costume is great, but really, where are you going with this thing?  Outside works out well, but as soon as you get to your destination, you're screwed.  The best part of the costume is towering over everyone.  As soon as you lose that, you're just another guy in a Death costume, only you're tripping over your pants because they're way too long.  Then there's the stilts.  What are you going to do with these?  You can't just leave them in the corner, they'll get stolen.  I know that because I was looking into stilts a few years ago as an alternate means of transportation (I figured if I got long enough stilts, I could cut my work commute down to three steps*.  Who wouldn't want their commute to work to be three steps?!?!?) but I stopped looking when I saw the cost of insurance would be five times more than owning a private moonship used only for recreation and the occasional escape from interplanetary apocalyptic collapses.  The theft rate is nearly 95%.  It's almost impossible to hold onto stilts.  They're difficult to store and a giant pain in the butt to carry around.  You ever see anyone carrying around their stilts while not using them?  Exactly.

* I saw this ad in the paper a few years ago.  Looking back on it now, I don't know why the poor craftsmanship of the ad didn't tip me off to the "too good to be true-ness" of it.