Normally my spouse and I enjoy each other’s company, and lead a relatively strife-free existence. But right now, I’m a little bit ticked off at Petey.

I’m a pretty good wife. I don’t nag (too much). I barely complain when he watches football all weekend, and Mondays, and Thursdays. I cook him his favorite foods. I’m a cheap date — take me to Costco, buy me a fro-yo for $1.35, and I am a very happy girl. And when he burps so loud he rattles the windows, I don’t even smack him.

So when I made one very small, very earnest request, you’d think he’d acquiesce.

Nope.

He won’t take me out on Halloween for trick-or-treating. I think that just stinks.

And I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about awesome costumes. I’ve come up with some pretty good ones, so if you’re lucky enough to go out, you’re welcome to ’em.

The first one is easy, and I think, pretty darn good. Put on a T-shirt with the word “Life” written on it. Carry a basket full of lemons, and hand them out. Get it? Life handing out lemons?

When I was little, I thought that because of our shared moniker, her raisin cakes were made just for me. But even if you’re an Edith or Otis, Little Debbie is a fun and easy costume. And if folks don’t get it, you can always say you’re Scout from ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’, or Huck Finn’s sister.

One get-up that is very trendy is a pumpkin spice latte. Just be prepared for a horde of hipsters to follow you like you are a can of tuna, and they’re a bunch of cats.

Dress up like a Granny Smith, accessorize with a cigarette and a leather jacket, and you’ll be a bad apple.

Wear a large white trash bag, which you have decorated to look like a 5-pound bag of sugar. Tape one small tea bag to it, and go as sweet tea.

My dad and I loved to come up with nutty, complicated costumes when I was a kid.

One year I wanted to be a bubblegum ice cream cone. He built the infrastructure with medium gauge wire, and covered it with miles of wide masking tape, a la papier-mâché. We painted the bottom with beige spray paint, and with a large brown magic marker, drew in the crosshatching. The top was painted Barbie pink, then flecked with multi-colored “bubblegum.” Just don’t forget arm and eye holes.

One year we did a costume that won every contest I entered. It was hands down, one of the best Halloween costumes ever. I promise if you duplicate it, you will win Halloween.

It was a head on a table.

We cut corrugated card board into a large circle (about 3 feet across), with a hole cut in the middle. We placed upon it a cheap checkered table cloth, and glued on a cup, napkin, and plastic silverware. Over the hole, we placed a large plastic plate with a hole also cut in it.

I made up my face like a corpse, and set the table on my shoulders, with my seemingly decapitated noggin sitting on the plate. To cover the space around the hole, I placed some lettuce around my neck as a “garnish.” We taped a couple of pieces of cardboard support underneath so the table wouldn’t wobble, and I was good to go. I was the talk of the night.

If, unlike me, you can get a Halloween partner, I have some ideas for couples’ costumes.

You can do traditional pairings, like peanut butter and jelly, or bacon and eggs. But how about one of you dressing as a humungous, overstuffed fast-food burger, and the other can be a defibrillator? Or you can dress as Martha Stewart, and your collaborator can dress as a giant stick.

For last, I’ve saved something from the food world that’s guaranteed to strike horror in the hearts of just about everybody these days. Wear a beige shirt and a pair of pants, and attach giant rubber bands or inner tubes all over yourself. You can then terrorize the villagers as…

Gluten!

Thanks for your time.