I’m Still Bitter About My First Grade Costume Contest

Hear me out.

Listen. Ok. Just … I’m not upset. Ok. Of course I’m not. That would be crazy to still ache with loss and burn with a lingering bitterness over something like this because I’m a grown man now and I have a job and responsibilities and, you know, all that, but listen—I just want to tell you about my first grade costume contest.

The tale begins when I was in Kindergarten, five years old and naive to the cruel ways of the world. My school hosted a costume contest every Halloween for the older children—first grade through eighth. A winner was crowned in each class, and then a winner overall. Us Kindergarteners, deemed too young and fragile to participate, sat in the assembly and watched.

Wide-eyed and innocent, I beheld parade of fantastic costumes crossing the stage. Winners were crowned and cheered by the teachers and students alike, and ultimately, a thought crossed my tiny developing mind:

“I want to be a star.”

Young Archer was a creature you wouldn’t recognize now. He was nothing like the morose, withdrawn adolescent puberty left in its wake. Instead, he was talkative and full of energy, bombarding any adult who’d listen with eighty-three questions a minute, posing dramatically in every photo taken of him, desperate to be the center of attention, to run faster, to sing louder, to dance with more energy, to overwhelm the world.

In other words, he was a little pain-in-the-ass. And that little pain-in-the-ass now had a dream.

I was going to win that costume contest next year. When I became an eligible first-grader, I would demolish my fellow six-year-olds with a costume so awesome it would spark a new era of school-wide creativity—a Midwestern costume-making renaissance of sorts. And also all my teachers would give me Sour Patch Kids and let me have extra recess and the big kids in my class who could throw footballs and run fast would cry because their costumes sucked.

This was not a mere fantasy. I set about making it a reality with great effort, determination and skill. By which I mean I told my mom.

“Of course we can make you an amazing costume,” she said.

“Why don’t you just wear a cowboy hat or something?” my dad said.

He didn’t understand my glorious vision.

A school year passed, a summer too, and my first-grade Halloween was soon approaching. My mom and I set up a few all-staff meetings to discuss the issue. Who would I be? We needed ingenuity and originality, but we also needed a recognizable character, one that would impress both the teachers and the students.

I had the perfect idea. (Ok, my mom had the perfect idea.) Frodo Baggins.

You see this was the early 2000s, when the Lord of the Rings trilogy was winning Oscars and inspiring fans across the globe. And I—tiny, even for a five-year-old—would make a damn fine hobbit.

My mom got to work, thrifting and sewing, and crafted a homemade Frodo costume of carefully calibrated perfection. I wore an oversized ring around my neck, a billowing cape over a patterned vest. She even sewed fake fur onto the top of flesh-colored socks to achieve true hobbit accuracy. When it finally came together, I was gripped by pride bordering on arrogance—this was a winning costume if I had ever seen one.

“I will take the ring—though I do not know the way,” I whispered in an English accent.

“Yeah, great,” my dad said. “But maybe don’t talk like that at school or someone’s going to steal your lunch money.”

And then the fateful day of the contest arrived. My school assembled—vampires and skeletons and princesses filling the auditorium rows. I sized up the competition, and my confidence grew. A blonde Harry Potter? Ridiculous. A hockey mask? How original. I could practically smell victory.

“I’m going to win,” I said to the kid on my left.

“I don’t care,” he said.

“I’m going to win,” I said to the kid on my right.

“I also don’t care,” she said.

Before the procession of costumes began, our principal took to the stage and made an announcement:

“This year, we won’t have a costume contest, but more of a costume show. There will not be any first, second, or third place winners. Instead, we’d just like to show off all your beautiful costumes.”

I wanted to die.

In later months, I learned that the contest had made some children sad when they lost. Those children told their parents, and those parents complained to the school, and so instead of a contest we all just walked on stage together, grade by grade, in our costumes, and then went back to our seats. There were no winners.

My effort was in vain, and my soul was in pain.

My mom assured me that it was still a nice costume, and that doing cool things was worthwhile even if you don’t win accolades. I was skeptical.

My dad assured me that I was being kind of a brat about this costume contest thing and that no one would like me if I kept acting like I was better than everyone. I was also skeptical.

That night, I slipped out of my hairy socks, removed the ring from around my neck, and folded my cape. The lessons I learned, I suppose, were that rugs will always be pulled; effort will often go unrewarded; and adults are stupid. These are lessons I appreciate to this day.

But I also learned that being a little pain-in-the-ass constantly seeking attention is not an endearing quality. And you probably shouldn’t invest your entire self-worth in silly contests and egotistical comparisons with others. Those are important lessons I’m still learning to this day.

And OK, yes, I’m still bitter about my first-grade costume contest.

---