Halloweenapallooza

Let me start out saying that I am not a big fan of the Halloween season. I have several reasons, the least of which is that I totally hate that in my neighborhood people start decorating as early as mid September and leave the stuff up until Thanksgiving. I just want to scream. It is disgusting to me that every house has the same cheap string of orange lights or the plastic headstone on the lawn. What some houses lack in imagination they try to make up for in quantity.One neighbor literally has something on ever square foot of their lawn. It looks sort of like the Halloween aisle at Walmart threw up on their lawn.

Another issue I have is with trick or treat. I still remember the good old days when it was safe to go door to door and get a bag full of candy. It was simple, go out, ring a doorbell, look cute, get as much candy as your bag could hold, go home and eat til you got sick. These days there are extra steps. Now you go out, trick or treat and get the candy. Then you bring it home and sort it. Take out the unusables, like the pencils and the soy sauce packets. (Oh I forgot to mention, if you look older than 12 and show up at my door, I give you a left over condiment packet that I have saved from all the fast food restaurants I have gone to that year.) Next you have to take the candy to the local hospital to have it scanned for needles and razor blades. (I like to think that there is a special place in hell for people who put that stuff in the candy.) Then and only then can you go home and eat.

What ever happened to the days when it was just children showing up in cute costumes? I get sort of creeped out when adult co-workers show up all costumed up, especially in their furry fetish costumes or outfits that no fat bodies should ever think of wearing. Seriously Superman and/or Wonder Woman never had a beer gut. I really do not like it when older teens show up trick or treating (Although,if any of you college age girls come by in a french maid outfit or in cosplay attire, kudos, I will give you extra candy for that.)

So we will see how the season shapes up. I think this year our 3 year old will want to go trick or treating. I am secretly hoping that he will want to wear the Batman costume I have saved from my childhood.

One of the biggest problems I have with Halloween is the pumpkins. Pumpkins, as it turns out are harbingers of death. I am not making this up, it is absolutely true. Josh asked me to carve a pumpkin for him this year. He sat and watched me and after I had carved it to his liking we put in a candle and set it on top of the TV. It sat there for a couple of days and then pumpkageddon. I arrived home after work yesterday and saw the remains of the pumpkin in the kitchen sink. I started to ask which kid knocked the pumpkin down and Dessy cut me off saying " The TV is DEAD!" Apparently the evil pumpkin warmed up on the tv set, got soft and collapsed on itself,leaking a load of liquid death on the front of the tv, causing it to short out.


My final and the biggest problem that I have with the season is how so many kids dress up like zombies and monsters. A friend of mine pointed out that this could be bad if trick or treat happened at the same time that the actual zombie apocalypse comes. How would you know what is zombie and what is a kid dressed up like one? The answer that I came up with is that I will be forced to just shoot 'em all and let God sort 'em out. So zombies and children alike, stay off my lawn.

Things I should not be saying out loud in my house.

One of the more unfortunate pieces of my persona is a propensity to speak before really thinking about the ramifications of my words. It has gotten me in trouble more than once.

Last Friday a nice couple from church took us out to see the 'Pumpkin Patch Boogie' which is a sort of a country style carnival with the proceeds going to a nice local charity. It has a hot dog and bean dinner, a petting zoo, square dancing and lots of games for the kids. We were heading back to the petting zoo and Josh saw a few of the pygmy goats. He asked me what they were and before I could stop myself, out popped "Those are Indonesian horses. God made them tiny so your mother could ride them." There were a lot of people and with all the noise it was hard to hear me yelp when Dessy kicked me in the shin.

One of the latest things that I had launched was in response to a comment my wife made while changing the baby. The little boy was being quite squirmy and mommy mentioned that the baby seemed to be grabbing his pee pee a lot. Before I could stop myself, I blurted " I suppose if no one else is grabbing it, he figures it is fair game to grab it himself." Suddenly the room became very cold. I slunk away trying not to let my giggling be audible.

Sometimes I have the time to think about what is going to come out of me, but unfortunately I never really pay attention to the voice yelling to stop before it is too late. On the way home from church last Sunday Josh asked his mommy if she was a boy or a girl? Mommy asked him to reason it out, "What do you think mommy is?" Josh thought it over and got a big smile and said "A Girl!" I thought I would help reinforce his perceptual process and asked him what was his grandmother, girl or boy? He relied a girl so I then raised the difficulty a couple of notches. "Josh, what is your cousin Amanda? Is she a girl or boy?" Josh immediately replied, " A girl!"

So I ask, " Are you sure? Why then is her name A - MAN- da?" Josh got a very confused look for a minute and his mother just shook her head and mumbled something in Indonesian.
At least she has the sense to blurt things in a language that I do not understand.