My First Costume

This is the first year I had a costume for Halloween. I made a tin foil robot after seeing many on the web. The mall was having their annual trick or treat for a few hours in the evening where kids could walk in safety and get treats from local merchants. People were encouraged to put on a costume and come give the mall some seasonal atmosphere. I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to test the waters, so I geared up and went to the mall in costume, sans robot head as I couldn't get in the car with it on.

I was pleasantly surprised at the response. Got a lot of parents pointing out the robot to their kids and getting requests for "TinFoilio" to make appearances at some stores. What I couldn't quite grasp is the disparate response from the little kids who either: were intrigued and waved and wanted to approach the "robot", or wanted to flee in terror, often shrieking - though I must confess the latter did hold a certain perverse appeal. Still, what's to fear from a tin foil robot?

Then I saw an on-line article about the correlation in people's minds between the width of a man's face and his tendency toward aggression. Given that I already stand around 6'2" and the extra height of the "head" added about 4 inches to my height, I suppose that could be imposing. But how tall is Minnie Mouse at Disney World? So that couldn't be all of it. So I'm left with wondering if there is anything to that "wide face" theory.

For your consideration, here is a picture of the wide-faced guy the article used as illustration and a photo of my robot head. The robot "head" is 12"x12"x12".






After I got home I decided to stroll around the neighborhood, which in itself was fun. Cars stopped to pay respects, I overheard someone say to one of their kids, "Look, there's a robot, just walking around. You think he's just walking around alone?" One little girl was concerned about that. It was kinda sweet. I "busted" a few robot dance moves to the delight of some of the kids - a few who even joined in. I walked down Belmont and got some honks from passing autos and a few slowed. Had my picture taken several times, though none were posed. All-in-all, a very positive first experience bringing TinFoilio "on-line".

I already have several more ideas for TinFoilio iterations in mind, hopefully in time for New Year's. Maybe TinFoilio will have better luck finding and sustaining a relationship than I have!

(Note: Posted originally at http://misterjimmy.livejournal.com/)