Master comedian Jerry Seinfeld has written a new children's book for Halloween. Actually, let me rephrase that: Master comedian Jerry Seinfeld has written down one of his classic bits, hired someone to illustrate it, and turned it into in a children's book for Halloween. Fortunately, it's a great bit, all about the trials of trick-or-treating, the shoddy construction of kids' costumes, etc. Here's the cool part - it's written in the book exactly as he performs it on stage. So if you buy this book, you can read it to your kids word for word and have them rolling in the aisle (or at least in their beds). Think about it - how often is a well-respected professional comedian going to provide you with sure-fire knockout material to perform for your family? You're sure to be a hit. And if you just have no comedic timing whatsoever (or if you're simply too busy to read to your kids) the book comes with a CD of Jerry Seinfeld himself doing the bit. Yes, it's true - you can have Jerry Seinfeld himself read this hilarious Halloween ditty to your kids, for less than the cost of this year's Halloween costume.

Speaking of which, I know that the classic Halloween masks we all grew up with are now considered a huge safety hazard, but I think the Disney solution of incorporating the mask onto the top of the hood of the outfit, with the kids face underneath, looks completely ridiculous. It appears as though Pooh, Tiger, the Beast, et al are actually eating the little kids (see below). I think maybe some makeup, or maybe just the characters' ears on the hood would work much better (and in fact some of the Disney adult costumes do just that). Anything would be better than looking at the beloved Eeyore or furry Sulley with a mouth-full of your child's head.

Of course, if you want to go a more classic route, log onto Ebay and do a search for Ben Cooper (bonus points if you remember who that is). You can find all those great costumes we used to wear, with the thin plastic mask and the plastic costume that sometimes wasn't even indicative of the person you were trying to be, but simply had a picture of them on the chest so you basically turned out looking like that character wearing a shirt with his/ her own picture on it. If you or someone you know can sew, you can also find patterns for costumes on Ebay. That is, if you don't mind the 'homemade' look. I always hated the homemade costume - possibly because one year I thought it would be cool to spray paint a sweatshirt silver and then make a papier-mache helmet for a robot costume. It looked really, really great - in my head. Of course, what I didn't realize was that if you papier-mache a bucket, the resulting helmet still looks like a bucket. I still vividly remember the lady at the first house we went to calling me 'Bucket-head.' That was my last year of trick-or-treating.

After all, it's just not as much fun when you're able to drive yourself.