What if #14 [Writing Prompt]

Each week the Rivera Runs Through It blog presents a different "What If...?" question for you to explore.
 At the bottom of this post is a place for you to link up your own post about this week's question. If you have arrived at this post and the inlinkz tool is closed, or you don't have a blog, then please leave your response (or link) in the comment section below using DISQUS.

Happy pondering to everyone...

What IF #14:

What if you became your Halloween costume?

For the truly astute followers and readers, or long term friends and family that count themselves as readers, it will come as no surprise to you that I am a huge fan of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series. (My beagle's name is Buffy.) However, I have not written about it all that much, so I felt the need to preface it here because this week's What if question is 100% inspired by an episode of this fantastic series.

Here's what I wore all day Halloween this year! :)

Here's a synopsis of the episode straight from IMDB:

It turns out that Halloween is the one night of the year when vampires actually lay low, so everybody is getting their costumes from the new store in town, Ethan's Costume Shop. Buffy wears a noble woman's dress from the time when Angel was human, Xander dresses up like a soldier, and Willow chickens out on dressing like a hooker and goes as a ghost. But Ethan Rayne, the shop owner, has invoked the Roman god Janus so everybody becomes their costume. That means all the kids in the neighborhood are now monsters and Buffy thinks she is an 18th-century maiden who faints at the sight of demons and vampires.

This episode happened early on in the series (Season 2) which led to some of the recurring characters being quite thoughtful about costume choices year after year. Well, I guess they got into my head, too! Now, whenever I get dressed up or am selecting a costume I start pondering what my life would be like if I woke up November 1st as that.

This year, I am getting my costume a little bit late (our annual Halloween party is scheduled for November 5th!), so I'm not even sure what fate I could possibly be dooming myself to, but in previous years there was

• Waldo from the Where's Waldo books (does this mean NO ONE would be able to find me again?!), 
• a Ghostbuster (would I be haunted and slimed for all of my remaining days?), 
• a ghost (would I have to die?!),
• Albert Einstein (would this lead to extreme intelligence, or, the cold-harsh reality: Albert Einstein is dead!). 

 As a child I had some other options, I dressed up as

• a Smurf (this seems like a disaster scenario!), 
• an old woman (how heartbreaking!), 
• a chef (perhaps the best possibility in this case... although I don't know if I was a good chef - I carried around a rubber chicken!), 
• a clown (I don't know how entertaining I find this idea...)
• a scarecrow (boooorrrrriiiinnnnngggg - Do I just have stand around all day??)
• a cat (would I be a stray, left on the streets, or be adopted into a loving home?)

and this would be really scary

• the Virgin Mary (I don't think I can handle the responsibility!!!)

There are so many more. I'm sure after I publish this post, some really fantastic ones will come to mind, but what about you? Did you dress up this year? If not, go ahead and use a costume of your past. Even better - do you have kids? Well, what if your cute little monsters turned into real little monsters, super heroes, princesses, pieces of fruit, fanciful insects, or whatever else they dressed up as this year?

Think about it.

It could be scary.

It might be funny.

In some cases, it might be just what you need (maybe I should dress up as an independently wealthy woman!).

Whatever it is - write a story about it and then link up below!

For a list of all of the What if questions asked so far, 

see The What If Prompts