If you could be ANYONE for HALLOWEEN

JAN BROGAN: Time Magazine did a funny piece on the most popular Topical Halloween costumes for 2012, which included suggestions with tongue-in-cheek requirements to pull off the costumes.

Charlie Sheen and the Goddesses (cigarette perpetually hanging from your mouth, very little clothes -goddesses only - backwards Yankees cap - self-destructive tendencies. )

A pregnant Beyonce, unitard, babybump, black and white striped hat, Kate Middleton in wedding dress, Harold Cain with the pizza box, and Michele Bachman (you can resuse your 2008 suit from your Sarah Palin costume) and simply A Mormon (from the Broadway play and two of the three Republican candidates for president).

It got me to thinking. In real life, I'm not big on dressing up for Halloween, but in my dreams, if I didn't have to actually worry about procuring and/or paying for the costume, who would I want to be?

If I didn't have to worry about it being age-appropriate, I'd go with Lady Gaga, just because she has the most outlandish outfits. But since I DO have to worry about being age appropropriate, I think I'll go with Anne Boleyn. For one thing, I've always wanted to wear one of those velvet dresses with the bodices, for another, my husband could

go as Henry VIII OR the executioner with the fancy ax from France.

Okay Reds: If cost and the ability to actually put the outfit together were not an issue: WHO WOULD YOU BE FOR HALLOWEEN, and why?

ROSEMARY HARRIS: We're not doing anything wildly creative this year. I'm in charge of costumes and Bruce is a good sport so in the recent past he's been Mickey Mouse, Fred Flintstone, Diego Rivera and Amelia Earhart's publisher husband whose name I never remember. This year he is Rick Grimes, the survivor cop from The Walking Dead and I will either be a zombie or Rick's wife - depending on how thin I feel that day.

If we were going high concept we'd go as Steve Jobs and an apple.

JAN: I can t BELIEVE TIME MAGAZINE didn't think of that. They should make you EDITOR.

HALLIE EPHRON: This is hard. The bride of Frankenstein would be fun. Or Neytiri from Avatar. If I get her body, too, then I'll go as Katy Perry (Is there enough money in the world to make that happen??)

JAN: Katy Perry, who looks remarkably like Boop, don't you think? All you need is the big round eyes....

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: OOh. Jonathan and I went as the Arks one year, Joan and Noah. The next year, I ran out of ideas, so I stayed in my aluminum foil chain mail, but changed my fleur de lys to an Arkansas flag, put on a cowboy hat, and went as Joan of Arkansas. Jonathan was Noah of Arkansas, which makes no sense at all, but it was pretty funny.

I'd LOVE us to be Nick and Nora Charles. I'd have to crimp my hair, and get an Asta, but the dress could be great. And Jonathan would be very comfortable with a martini.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Hank, when you and Jonathan attended the Red and Black Ball at last year's Crime Bake, you absolutely looked like Nick and Nora - if they had been turned into vampires.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Agatha Christie. Frumpy would pose no problem. But I'd steal Nick and Nora Charles from Hank, except Rick would never dress up for Halloween. I, however, would look with a martini in my hand. Sans olive.

JAN: Yeah, I liking the Nick and Nora thing, too. She had fabulous satin dresses. And Debs, now I want a martini in my hand, too. (But I don't think Anne Boleyn drank them.)

RHYS BOWEN: I'd like Kate Middleton's wedding dress if I could lose six dress sizes overnight! Since I didn't grow up with Halloween I missed out on being princess, fairy etc. I was a mermaid one year--hard to walk. One year when John had a black beard we went as the devil and a fallen angel (black angel costume) and we got lost on the way to the party. John wound down the window to ask directions from a group of teenagers. He was in tuxedo but had upswept eyebrows and red horns growing out of his hair. One kid started to give directions then noticed. "You've got horns," he said in a shaky voice. "I am the devil," John replied in scary English voice as we drove away.

JULIA: And that kid spent the next year in therapy. I bet to this day, he can't watch any programming originating from the UK. Which (note this suave redirection to the topic) is where I'd get my dream costume from. If I could get my Halloween wish, the producers of DOWNTON ABBEY would open their costume room for me and let me run amok. I adore that late-Edwardian look - high necklines, sweeping bodices, all those exquisite dressmaker details. When I was younger, I actually went once as a Gibson Girl. Now that I'm silver-haired and, shall we say, more comfortably padded, I think I'd make a very imposing Dowager.

Or we could move it back a couple of decades: I could be the widowed Queen Victoria, and Ross could be my Highland "servant," John Brown.

JAN: Some interesting choices here - and we won't get all analytical about what they might mean -- so come on, tell us. WHO WOULD YOU BE?

And me without my travel taser

JAN: Since this is the time EVERYONE goes away, I'm sticking with the travel theme. Yesterday was why we travel. Today is why travel can make us nuts.

And since airline travel is a pretty good punching bag, I decided to focus on that.

I only recently overcame a twenty year plane phobia that made flying torture. I was so grateful to ditch my imagined fears that I never focused on the very real irritations that drive so many other people crazy. But reading Time Magazine's piece: "'20 Reasons to Hate the Airline Industry: or the brief history of the industry's 30 year campaign to nickel-and-dime us nearly to death," I found a new trend in the airline industry that could make me wish I was still too phobic to fly.

The CUT IN LINE FEE.

As I see it, so far the airline industry has only managed to come up with novel fees that make you hate the airline industry. In this latest burst of creativity, they've come up with a new fee that will make you hate the other passengers.

Imagine this: One of those really long lines you find at about six a.m. when you are headed to the Caribbean in the winter. Let's pretend you've been foolish and booked this flight during school vacation week. And let's say, you're re not one of those diligent people who get to the airport two hours early no matter what and are running late. You're three quarters deep into the line and time is running out.

You're tired because its so early, you haven't had your coffee, and you're irritated by hauling too much luggage. Plus, you bought your tickets on a whim and suspect you paid 20 percent more than everyone else. Finally, you move up the line, and with only five minutes left until boarding, it's your turn at the counter. Suddenly, a well-to-do family of six, each with two pieces of luggage and their own scuba equipment, cuts in line and takes your place. You say, "Excuse me, I was next." They completely ignore you, which they are allowed to do because they paid their $30 cut in line fee.

Maybe three other people get to step ahead of you to the open counters. Maybe you find yourself seated in front of one of them when you finally board your airplane. Maybe you ram your seat back as far as it goes and start humming "One Way or Another," by Blondie. Maybe you prefer "My Aim is True" by Elvis Costello. But you get the picture, we're talking about air rage.

My husband tells me that Southwest Airlines has had a version of the cut in line fee for a while, with the ability to "buy up" into the A line. They made the process confusing enough that most other passengers couldn't figure it out.

But I think the cut-in-line fee will surely get people killed in New York. And what's next? The Go-ahead-talk-too-loud-on-your-cell-phone-fee? The-don't-wait-your-turn for the bathroom fee? The drink-too-much and-knock-your-legs-into the nearest passenger fee? The possibilities for rude behavior revenue are endless.

Check out the Time article at:

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2002620_2002604_2002611,00.html

And come back tomorrow when I'll be interviewing Jennifer Delahunty, the dean of admissions of Kenyon College, and author of a new collection of essays about how the college admissions process makes parents crazy.