My son inadvertently gave me a brilliant idea for a line of Halloween costumes aimed at parents with teenagers due to a sassy insult he threw my way while I was talking to him on the phone.
Now to actually get him on the phone required me to go into full fib mode. I don’t know about you, but my children don’t use their phone for making calls – ever. To get him to actually talk to me I have to do what I call baiting the money hook. This means texting him about his finances.
It goes exactly like this: “Do you need more money for the rest of this month? Your dad thought maybe you were running low.”
When I send this text I know all I need to do is count to five before I get a response in the affirmative. Then I text back “call me so we can talk about how much you need.” 3, 2, 1 and ring-a-ding-ding. It’s my son using his phone for its primary purpose. Hold me. I feel faint.
Once I have him on the phone I began a mom interrogation about what’s fun and new at college. This past week he updated me on the happenings at a career fair. I, of course, gave him oodles of excellent advice and sage wisdom, which lead him to suggest that I go as a “helicopter parent for Halloween.”
After we got off the phone I began thinking that my son might be onto something (and it’s not that I’m a helicopter parent). Halloween costumes for parents of teenagers could be a h-u-g-e, untapped market. I did some research and Americans spent $350 million on Halloween costumes – for their pets. Yes, pets! I can only imagine what this could bring in.
In an effort to find investors for future Halloween I’m unveiling a sneak peek at my debut collection right now. Drum roll please.
The star of the line is, of course, going to be the Helicopter Parent costume. This ensemble will feature a hat that resembles rotor blades and a rectangle over the head sheath that will look like an iPhone screen with apps that light up (battery included). These apps will be the high school parent portal that lists current grades, a child tracker GPS system, a homework to do list, the current class rank of your kid and a live stream of what your teen is posting on all of his or her social media accounts.
The next costume coming down the runway is the ACT/SAT Parent. Remember when you were in high school and you just showed up on a Saturday morning and took your college entrance exam? No muss. No fuss. Now every parent has to have skin in the game and by that I mean money is spent on tutoring and getting a statistical analysis of what time of the year is better to achieve a higher score. This costume will be large number two pencil with a hat in the shape of an eraser where you can attached a check made out to the college prep business of your choice.
Behold the wonder of the Finstagram costume. A “Finsta” is teen’s fake (or second) Instagram account where they “get real” and by that I mean post drunk, duck face pics and share other assorted moments in high school debauchery. The costume will look like an Instagram page with the front featuring a “perfect” teen as portrayed on the account parents monitor and the back will be the Finstagram account which will be a large photo of a red solo cup. The sight of which makes any legal guardian murmur, “Oh God, no.”
The showstopper of the collection will be a limited edition (I’m thinking perhaps even going couture) cheerleader outfit with a huge megaphone. This costume is called the Bragger. The outfit will be personalized with your teen’s face emblazoned on the cheer sweater and the working megaphone will be not only be decoupaged with all of your kid’s report cards, but at the touch of a button will loudly broadcast every thing your child has ever done up to and including pre-school achievements to college acceptance letters. Pom-poms will be extra.
Seriously, I’m thinking total awesomeness. Anyone want to go in with me on this?
***
🎃Here’s another super duper idea – getting your hands on my most recent book – as in it just came out a couple of days ago. It’s called FOUR SEASONS OF SNARKY. 🍁 It’s chock full of my most favorite blog posts of all times. 😉 Please get all click happy and go take a lookie loo right now on Amazon! www.amazon.com/dp/B0BGYQ9GK2
Snarky in the Suburbs 