Wal-O-Ween

“Great costume!” I say to the bumblebee who parks beside me in the meat isle, where I'm browsing the questionably organic chicken (it is Wal-Mart after all), her antennae—actual wire thin braids of hair and not just any old off-the-rack headband—bobbing like some kind of lure.

“Great costume!” I say again to the Mad Hatter—Johnny Depp and Tim Burton’s version, marvelously reproduced by a woman not much taller than her top hat, who looks as if she has never questioned anything that said, “Eat me”—over in the Candy and Snack aisle, where, for marketing reasons I have yet to decipher, the raisins have been moved.

“Great Costume!” I say yet again to The Queen of Hearts, a tall and thick woman, who I’m guessing has a CDL, and only now it occurs to me, might have a thing going with the Mad Hatter.

“Great Costume!” I wanted to say to the homely Mennonite chick in her grey bonnet, blue skirt and course black shoes. But of course... I didn’t have the balls.