This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

My wife won't let me wear a costume for Halloween this year. She says I should act my age and just hand out candy like a normal old coot.

This means I don't get to dress up as something hideously gory, fling open the door and scare the pee out of small children who just want candy. Some of them lock up and fall over like myotonic goats. It's hilarious.

The lady who owns this place thinks it's also immature and cruel. She outlawed it several years ago. I might as well just go to bed right after dinner for all the fun the night will be.

It's not immaturity. OK, maybe a little. But the fact is I got a late start on Halloween. I didn't go trick-or-treating until I was almost 9. That's a good five years after most kids start.

Before that, my family lived in Europe. Over there during the mid-'50s, beating on doors after dark was a good way to make the people inside pee and/or faint.

When we moved back to America, trick-or-treating was no longer just a legend that our parents told stories about. We would actually get to do it.

One fall day at Garfield Elementary, Mrs. Miller — who came to school every morning dressed as an overweight warthog — announced that we should wear our Halloween costumes to school the following day.

There was no time to lose. I immediately raced home to make preparations. The other kids had years of experience on me. I wanted to get it right so that I didn't look like a rube my first time out.

Bursting into the house, I breathlessly informed Mom that I wanted to be something horrifying for Halloween, like a head-chopper guy, a stabber guy or, hell, anything that carried a fearsome instrument of death.

Me: "Only it has to be really, really bloody!"

Mom: "Oh, there you are. The school called and said you ran off. Get in the car."

Taking me back to school was a waste of time. I didn't pay attention the rest of the day. All I could think about was what I would be for my first Halloween.

In the end, it was the Old Man who convinced me to be the most dangerous thing in the entire universe: Satan. He even had the appropriate rubber mask left over from an office party. It was clammily claustrophobic and redolent of vomit, but it looked great.

In retrospect, what followed was probably therapeutic for my father. He spent the entire evening helping me find or make a red T-shirt, red shorts, red cape and a red forked tail. He even crafted a realistically bloody pitchfork and coached me on what to say.

The next morning, I marched into Garfield Elementary in full evil glory.

There were lots of princesses, clowns, cowboys, ballerinas, football players and other lame Halloween characters, but there was only one of me.

I entered the classroom with a flourish. Whisking the cape over my face, I menacingly hissed something to the effect of Mrs. Miller's soul being mine.

Her: "Well, it's Bobby Kirby. Where's your costume?"

Me: "What?"

I was only in the third grade and didn't yet appreciate irony, so the warthog's remark went right by me. Dejected by this departure from the imagined script, I trudged to my desk and sulked.

Everything worked out. Mrs. Miller didn't appreciate slapstick when I later jabbed her in the butt with my pitchfork.

The school sent me home early, where I got a head start on Halloween.

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley.