Taking off our masks

All Hallow's Eve quickly approaches: the season of spooks and ghosts. It's the holiday we enjoy collecting bags full of free candy, given to us from strangers, yet fear to consume under the slight apprehension that poison or surgical needles are within their sweet centers.\nThe pumpkins are ripened, the leaves have fallen to the ground and every mall has at least one shop set up for a month devoted to providing the cheapest quality polyester costumes for Halloween weekend costume parties. \nMy best girlfriend and I dared to enter one such shop in the mall this weekend. Her goal was to look for a sexy Girl Scout uniform, and mine was to find wings for a Victoria's Secret Angel costume idea I had imagined. \nAs we looked at the choices of costumes available in plastic packages lining the walls, we admired the vast array of "slutty" costumes already available: Slutty Nurse, Slutty Witch, Slutty Britney Spears (as if her name required to be modified by the adjective), Slutty Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz and yes, even the most politically incorrect costume, Slutty Middle Eastern girl. Any normal uniform or character can be slutty with a bit of bare midriff and a short polyester skirt. \nYes, these are the real names.\nSince when has Halloween become sluttified, you might ask?\nMy friend and I are just a couple of the many girls who are looking for sexy costumes for the holiday this year, and for girls in particular, Halloween is the only acceptable day we can manifest our somewhat scandalous side -- the one we restrain, repress or bury in a deep, dank tomb until Oct. 31.\nHalloween isn't about scaring anyone anymore. It's about becoming the person we secretly wish we could be in real life, or at least embody some of his or her characteristics. It astounds me how many people I see at parties dressed in the same cliché ensembles, year after year: Pimps 'n' hos, Gangsters and French Maids. The truth is horrifying if this is what's lurking underneath our normal day-to-day exteriors. \nOn second thought, I suppose Halloween is scary. While we all once thought the holiday was about taking on a new persona, perhaps it's about shedding the façade we wear and revealing our actual selves. \nI'm reminded of Jim Carrey's character in the movie "The Mask," when he visits the psychologist and author of the book "The Masks We Wear." The psychologist tells Jim Carrey's character that people wear many masks to shield their insecurities or make themselves bolder, except these masks are the metaphorical masks, invisible to the outsider. \nDo I secretly wish to prance around in lingerie, asking deep questions like "What is desire?" Does my friend have a secret fetish to be the girl next-door giving up her cookies to the guy next-door? \nPossibly. \nBut if for one night it's socially acceptable for us to embrace our sexuality, then let's take the streets, get our candy and be the eye candy all at the same time. \nThis year at Halloween, when you see your provocative friend dressed as an angel, or your reserved friend as a Playboy Bunny, it might just be the first time you've ever actually been introduced to the real person. \nYou can smile, shake the life-sized bong's hand and say, "It's nice to finally meet you"