Halloween Apathy
Realistically, I should be more excited about Halloween than I am. As a kid, I was obsessed with scary stories, scary movies, the occult, vampires, werewolves and ghosts. To a certain degree, I still am. I enjoy reading about “haunted” sites across the world, or weird phenomena and paranormal activity. As a person who puts so much creedence into facts and science, I remain a skeptic and have a strong curiosity for the things that cannot be explained.
Yet, Halloween has never had much of a pull on me. Once I was old enough to have my own money and mode of transportation, which allowed me to purchase large amounts of candy on a whim, I lost interest in the one thing that tethered me to Halloween; sugar.
I’ve never relished dressing up. If I remember right, I was often either a ghost or a vampire, the two easiest costumes to pull off. In fact, the last Halloween that I actually went out trick-or-treating, I went as a teenager. I was fourteen and a smartass. Still got me some candy, though.
The last time I actually dressed up was for a house party a few years back. I went as a janitor and used my mop-haired dog as my prop, tying a mop handle to her collar. I think that she was the only one that didn’t get a kick out of the costume.
The last few Halloween’s have been spent either at home or at a lame half-adult party getting trashed and talking about silly shit we did as kids on All Hallow’s Eve. Tonight, my big plans consist of watching the USC-Oregon and Notre Dame-Washington State football games, then having friends over to watch crappy horror movies that we can MST3K. The entire time, we will be dodging any trick-or-treaters that might waddle up to our house looking for our fun-size Snickers. It’s not that I don’t want to help them have a good Halloween, it’s that my dogs do apeshit whenever people come to the door and go extra apeshit when people come to the door after dark.
So, I hate to be a wet blanket, but I’ll be hibernating this Halloween. I’m just one step closer to realizing my potential as a grumpy old man. Enjoy your drunken revelry, goblins and ghouls.
