In honor of my mother’s birthday today, here’s a photo of the Halloween costume she spent weeks creating for me the year I was in kindergarten. I think you’ll appreciate it (but not as much as I did).

To this day, that remains one of my favorite Halloween costumes of all time.

To be fair, the costume was so unwieldy that I couldn’t move my arms much while wearing it, and when I fell over I looked like Ralphy’s brother from “A Christmas Story” trying to get back on my feet again — but when all the other kids were wearing off-the-rack plastic He-Man costumes, this one stood out as a true original.

Gaze upon the face of Pac-Man fever:

So hey, happy birthday and thanks for the great costume, Mom.