Awesome/Not Awesome (10-31-09): 5 Least Awesome Things About Halloween

Happy Halloween to youse guys. But for me, it’s one of the most aggravating days of the year.

Why?

You’re gonna find out in the 5 Least Awesome Things About Halloween.

Goddamn…. Fucking… shit.

5) Shitty Candy

We all remember going trick-or-treating as kids. Oh, how we would walk for three miles carrying a dozen bags of candy- our legs were sore, our arms were sore, and by the time we got home, we just wanted to throw the contents of our bags all over the fucking place and see what sort of goodies we got.

Ahhh- the good times.

But there was at least one Halloween…. Maybe more… where you empty your bag to find….

SHIT. Heaping fuckloads of shit.

Now I will admit, it’s nice that no matter what you get in your bag, it was free.
BUT...

Where’s all the good stuff? What’s this shit? Generic lollipops?!

Get that shit out of here.

Alright, we got some Kit Kats, sweet…. Mr. Goodbar… eh, alright.

But wait- Swedish Fish?

Now I love Swedish Fish. Almost as much as I love the Swedish Chef (who is probably responsible for the Swedish Fish), but it doesn’t really seem like a Halloween candy.

If you’re going to give out candy on Halloween, there’s one thing you need to know, adults:

WE NEED CHOCOLATE.

C’MON I’M SIX FUCKING YEARS OLD YOU’RE BREAKING MY BALLS HERE NEIGHBORS.

Anybody who knows anything knows that chocolate is the number one reason kids go trick-or-treating.

You think it’s because we like to wear costumes?

Well… sort of.

But the candy helps! So how about giving us something good?


A brief side note: You guys remember going to old people’s houses and they’d say “Tell me a joke” or “Sing a song” or something. Well, man oh man, do I wish I knew the Cow Joke when I was young…



4) People with every square inch of their lawn decorated

Now I suppose this could be generalized to any holiday, but Halloween kind of pisses me off more with this one.

I am not against decorations. A few things is alright, and if you’re really creative and you make like…. A Frankenstein-looking dude for your lawn- that’s great.

I support people with original shit.

But what really sucks is people who go berserk and slap down like $100 for their lawn- WITH A BUNCH OF SHIT FROM A STORE.

You’re really breaking new ground with THAT one, overzealous Halloween dude.

If you want to decorate, that’s fine- but don’t insult our intelligence. Some of these decorations are exactly the same! How many gravestones with just “RIP” can you have one lawn? They all look exactly the same, we KNOW you bought them and that they are mass-produced. Why don’t you take all the money you spent on bland cheap gravestones and go buy a REAL gravestone. Get your name carved onto it, too. And put THAT out on your lawn.

Put nothing else out there with it. Just plain lawn plus your headstone. Keep the headstone close to the door and make sure enough light is hitting it so it can be read.

So when all the kiddies come by they read the grave and are like

“Oh that Mr. starckie, he’s so funny.”

And they ring the doorbell.

But then you answer all dressed like a corpse and shit, and acting like a zombie or something. Start running right at them. Have your buddy in the house say something like “No! Get away from those kids! Kill me instead, ya Goddamn zombie!”


If THAT doesn’t scare those little shits, nothing will.

And you know how much it will cost?

One decoration, strategically placed.

None of this fake scary shit. Go real or go home. How many of the same fucking plastic black cats do I have to see in a given Halloween?



3) Mischief Night

So technically this isn’t about Halloween night, but it’s close enough. It comes with the season.

The problem I have with Mischief Night is that it exists.

Why?

If you are going to run around neighborhoods performing random acts of mischief, DON’T go on Mischief Night. There’s no element of surprise, and you’ve got to pretty stupid to actually commit any good mischief on a night everyone’s planned for it. I mean, if we had a day colloquially known as Arson Day, where (so we’re told) adolescents occasionally commit arson, would YOU go out that night and light somebody’s house on fire?

NO! People are watching for it! You’d get caught!

And what’s worse is, no GOOD mischief is ever committed on Mischief Night. What’s the worst that you’ve ever seen?

“Oh no, my Jack-O-Latern’s smashed.”

“Somebody TP’d my house.”

Real original there, “mischief- makers”.

And as I’ve mentioned before, originality is highly appreciated. And common sense is also applauded.

So how about doing something really cool for a change?

Get a sturdy rope and tie somebody’s back bumper to a tree. That oughta be fun, right?

Run around the neighborhood spray painting some illegible symbol on everybody’s lawn. That should creep the fuck out of them come the next morning.

None of this TP stuff.

And the only thing good about smashing pumpkins is Smashing Pumpkins.

So here’s what I’d do on Mischief Night: Sit around and do nothing but plan for other nights.

Cause nobody expects mischief…. Except on Mischief Night.

What a stupid fucking idea….



2) Kids

I know what you’re thinking: starckie, you love kids!

Yes, I do. Kids are great. I want to be a teacher.

But that doesn’t give kids the right to run around in the middle of the street, often wearing black, while I am trying to drive.

Where are the parents?! Don’t they know how tempting it is to hit a whole pack of Hannah Montana’s?!

And then there are some kids don’t even know who they are supposed to be for Halloween. What the hellsamatter with these kids? I don’t have to give you candy you know. I at the very least expect you to have a clue what you’re doing.

“Oh hey there, some little girl, what are you sposed to be?”

“A Princess.”

“A princess! Oh, that’s great.”

Some of you might be saying, that doesn’t sound so bad. This girl knew she was a princess.

Right. However, let me describe her attire a little more.

She was wearing blue baggy Arabian style clothing. She had a little pendent thingy. Clearly Disney.

So, as much I’d like to swear at little kids, I can’t. But if I could, here’s what that conversation would look like:

“Oh hey there, some little girl, what are you sposed to be?”

“A Princess.”

“A princess! Oh, does she have a name?”

“(Girl’s name)”

“No, no, no, that’s your name. What’s the princess’s name?”

Pause.

“You’re Jasmine, Goddamn it! You’ve got to be shitting me, you don’t know who Jasmine is? Holy fucking shit- give me back that candy. Better luck next year.”

Heartless? Perhaps.

But just because you’re young and in a costume doesn’t mean you don’t have to try.


And get out of the Goddamn road!



1) Christmas

That’s right, Christmas is totally, without a doubt, the shittiest, least awesome thing about Halloween.

That sentence didn’t even make sense, but it’s true.

CHRISTMAS- you know, Jesus is born, it’s in December- gets in the way of HALLOWEEN- Oct. 31, All Saints Eve.

I don’t want to walk into a store in October and see a Christmas tree up.

I don’t want to see Christmas-themed commercials on TV.

I don’t want to hear anyone say, “I can’t wait for Christmas.”

Bullshit. Yes you can wait. Or you damn well better, because now we’ve lost Thanksgiving and we’re losing Halloween to this fuckness.

The rampant commercialism and materialism is bad enough from Black Friday onward. Can’t we all just concentrate on Halloween for the time being?

With that, I would like to share with you all the scariest thing that happened to me on Halloween….ever.

Last year or the year before, Halloween fell on a Friday, and as is my family’s custom, we ordered a pizza.

And who had to go it, but yours truly. The pizza place is only a mile and a half from my house.

So I’m driving out there, and I see a dude with a popcorn machine on the side of the road. That’s not even candy, let alone shitty candy!

Then- oh great, the Store Bought Lawn of Doom.

A couple of teenagers are sitting around on the side of the road, plotting and scheming. There's a good idea! Screw Mischief Night, do it on Halloween, when everyone will notice you!

And all the while, these fucking kids are running out with reckless abandon on the off the street in the most random pattern I’ve ever seen- some of whom are completely in black and I can’t see, and some of the others that I can see I want to mow down with my vehicle, while the parents stand there and watch as they let the children of various single-digit ages take their lives into their own hands, and trust me not to let my own personal views of how natural selection should occur get in the way of my desire to go get the pizza I ordered.


And then “Wonderful Christmas Time” comes on the radio.

Then I had a stroke.


“Wonderful Christmas Time”?!





Wonderful Christmas Time.






No.





I don’t even know what to say.



“Wonderful Christmas Time”.

It defies all logic.



This little episode surely means that humans have “jumped the shark”, and are now devolving into apes.




So, this concludes my list- Happy fucking Halloween.

And don’t ring my doorbell. I’m not answering.