Halloween Blows... Or Sucks... Or Something...

Confessions of a Halloween Curmudgeon... (or I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you snooping kids)

See, I don't get the paper, so in my town, I never know when the trick or treaters are coming, I ostensibly miss it, or get home from work late. If I do get in late, I douse every light in the house except for a room in the back just to keep from having to answer the door.

Inevitably, someone invites you to a Halloween party. Now, somehow, it is thought, by a non-trivial percentage of the population, that getting verschnickered while in your street clothes is good, but getting dressed up in some costume makes it ten times more fun. I can say from personal experience that it is not. The only good thing about the Halloween party versus other drunken evenings amongst friends is that the really hot women almost always go for the Sexy [vocational or fictional character here] Costume, which does make it somewhat better, but 10 times? Not quite.

In order to not seem like I am trying to make a personal statement about my utter contempt for and detestation of Halloween which might bring down the true-believers, I suck back the bile that thinking about the upcoming revelry produces, and try to be instantaneously creative with a costume. This never goes well. Since I really left my fantasizing about being someone else entirely back in my teens, this is a particularly arduous, and ultimately, failured task. I particularly detest having to go to those "open for about three weeks" costume shops that rent out disused stores in strip malls. I get the distinct impression that I'm at a garage sale while I'm there, making it absolutely clear that I am buying stuff that I absolutely WILL discard in short step, whether a plastic sword, a pimp hat, or whatever bric-a-brac I can cobble together into a lame excuse for a costume.

What my efforts will show is that I had no "vision" that year, and when I attend the party, I will feel precisely that much more annoyed as Johnny and Jane All-Hallows-Eve came as matching bookends, and their kids are out trick-or-treating in lovingly crafted-by-hand fully-functional-and-Transformable Megatron and Starscream outfits they spent 14 weeks in the garage with welding torches making. Shit, even the potato "fusion" cannon on Megatron's arm works, the Starscream outfit is capable of actual flight, and both employ hydraulics strong enough to enrubble your backyard fire pit. I assume these options are for "trick" purposes?

Sue Hotoutfit will be there too in her Sexy Longshorewoman's outfit (or was it Sexy Hairnetted Cafeteria Lady? Oh, the hat gives it away, nevermind), bending over coyly in front of Pirate #14 of 54 that came to the party. And that's nice. But the pirates, what a sordid lot of retreads these guys are. All of the pirates will, of course, let out a cliche'd little "Aaaarrrr!" every third sentence and occasionally call you a "scurvy dog" as they mock threaten you with one eye squinted closed. May all 54 pirates that attended that party impale each other on their genuine, imitation, prestige, premium plastic cutlasses with authentic vinyl trim.

The next afternoon, I wake up blearily on the couch with my costume still on and the plastic cutlass poking me in the face (I was Pirate #14... Aaarr...) . I peel myself up off the couch, pop a few vitamins, wash them down with about a bucket of ice water and proceed directly to the bathroom to remove this ridiculous outfit, place it in the trash, and shower three or four times in a row because I feel so utterly unclean. They don't make soap powerful enough to remove "self-loathing".