Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Monsters can't mate because they've got Hollow-Weenies
Pleasant All Hallow's Eve to you. I'm hunkered in my room with the exterior lights off, avoiding the little shits participating in the ritual. I loved Halloween as a kid but it was so much different back then. 
The horror stories were always fifth-hand warnings about razor blades in apples (who gives apples?) and blotter acid sheets being given away as hand tattoos (quite the pricy treat, eh?), not about some evil spirit snatching up young goblins and the horrors of peanut allergies. We used to go to every freaking house for three blocks when I was among the costumed, and I kept tally of over 110 visitors in a night when I was the cryptkeeper -- er, door answerer at a late teen. That was the 1980's, and the last time I played doorman (in the 1990's when I lived in an apartment complex) I gave out ketchup packets from the crisper of my 'fridge. Caviat phasmatis and you never know, the trick-or-treaters might have been taken to McDonald's for french fries after they finished their rounds. Now so much of the marrow of what made Halloween fun has been sucked out of the dry bones that I'm surprised anyone still does it, and I admit that I am likely part of the reason why it's waning in popularity: my porchlight is off, I have bought no candy, I have no friends with little kids who live nearby (since the procedure now is to only go to trusted people's houses) and I have no kids of my own to drag around begging for Fun Size Snickers and four-in-a-package Bottlecaps. (I've always liked the rootbeer ones.) For years adults were complaining about the marketing of Halloween as a drinking holiday for adults because it was supposed to be a fun night for kids; now you hardly ever hear anyone complain about Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, standing next to a beer display with the caption "I Want To Suck Your Bud©" because the adults are now too busy complaining about the long-lost dark meanings of Samhain and fighting to keep any observation of a fun night for kids from happening in school... which I extrapolate as it now being only a drinking holiday for adults. 
Which is sad because some of the best Halloween parties I went to as a youth were at school, either during class hours or that night at the QUEST Carnival (which was supposed to be "an alternative" to knocking on doors but some kids would do both, bless 'em). Okay, maybe making out with Cassie Garnes shamelessly at the QUEST Carnival in 1984 [left, ignore the Reagan-Bush buttons if you need to] has something to do with it. Point is that no kid ever became a devil-worshiper from being dressed as Batman in a Ben Davis boxed costume during the social studies section of the schoolday or demanded a blood sacrifice later that night when they were ringing doorbells up and down the street. The only thing that hasn't changed between then and now is that there are still teenagers roaming the night throwing eggs at houses; you'd think they'd be the target of the grown-ups' scorn rather than the little ones dressed as pumpkins, princesses, or bedsheet ghosts, but the tots are low-hanging fruit.
Stupidity of the day: I have no idea where or how, but some critter has expired in or near the ventilation system, and thus when the heat is on the house becomes filled with the light, breezy aroma of tissue decay. (How very Halloween-ish!) I don't think it's coming from the intake because it doesn't smell at the blower and I cleaned the filter today; I haven't ventured under the house to see if something sought warmth and got trapped... which I should do because I recall my mother telling me one day during my first year of college that my family's house started taking on That Smell because six cats had gotten into the crawlspace under the house, and my father had to go under there to retrieve them postmortem. [BRB, going to check the crawlspace now, after dark with a flashlight in Gil Grissom style... sniff...] I'm pretty sure it's in the ductwork, it smells fine under the house. How the hell did something get into the presumably-sealed tubing?
The horror stories were always fifth-hand warnings about razor blades in apples (who gives apples?) and blotter acid sheets being given away as hand tattoos (quite the pricy treat, eh?), not about some evil spirit snatching up young goblins and the horrors of peanut allergies. We used to go to every freaking house for three blocks when I was among the costumed, and I kept tally of over 110 visitors in a night when I was the cryptkeeper -- er, door answerer at a late teen. That was the 1980's, and the last time I played doorman (in the 1990's when I lived in an apartment complex) I gave out ketchup packets from the crisper of my 'fridge. Caviat phasmatis and you never know, the trick-or-treaters might have been taken to McDonald's for french fries after they finished their rounds. Now so much of the marrow of what made Halloween fun has been sucked out of the dry bones that I'm surprised anyone still does it, and I admit that I am likely part of the reason why it's waning in popularity: my porchlight is off, I have bought no candy, I have no friends with little kids who live nearby (since the procedure now is to only go to trusted people's houses) and I have no kids of my own to drag around begging for Fun Size Snickers and four-in-a-package Bottlecaps. (I've always liked the rootbeer ones.) For years adults were complaining about the marketing of Halloween as a drinking holiday for adults because it was supposed to be a fun night for kids; now you hardly ever hear anyone complain about Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, standing next to a beer display with the caption "I Want To Suck Your Bud©" because the adults are now too busy complaining about the long-lost dark meanings of Samhain and fighting to keep any observation of a fun night for kids from happening in school... which I extrapolate as it now being only a drinking holiday for adults. 
Which is sad because some of the best Halloween parties I went to as a youth were at school, either during class hours or that night at the QUEST Carnival (which was supposed to be "an alternative" to knocking on doors but some kids would do both, bless 'em). Okay, maybe making out with Cassie Garnes shamelessly at the QUEST Carnival in 1984 [left, ignore the Reagan-Bush buttons if you need to] has something to do with it. Point is that no kid ever became a devil-worshiper from being dressed as Batman in a Ben Davis boxed costume during the social studies section of the schoolday or demanded a blood sacrifice later that night when they were ringing doorbells up and down the street. The only thing that hasn't changed between then and now is that there are still teenagers roaming the night throwing eggs at houses; you'd think they'd be the target of the grown-ups' scorn rather than the little ones dressed as pumpkins, princesses, or bedsheet ghosts, but the tots are low-hanging fruit.Stupidity of the day: I have no idea where or how, but some critter has expired in or near the ventilation system, and thus when the heat is on the house becomes filled with the light, breezy aroma of tissue decay. (How very Halloween-ish!) I don't think it's coming from the intake because it doesn't smell at the blower and I cleaned the filter today; I haven't ventured under the house to see if something sought warmth and got trapped... which I should do because I recall my mother telling me one day during my first year of college that my family's house started taking on That Smell because six cats had gotten into the crawlspace under the house, and my father had to go under there to retrieve them postmortem. [BRB, going to check the crawlspace now, after dark with a flashlight in Gil Grissom style... sniff...] I'm pretty sure it's in the ductwork, it smells fine under the house. How the hell did something get into the presumably-sealed tubing?
