And we're off

Nablopomo - day one. I'm actually looking forward to writing every day for the entire month of November. Of course with my track record of being completely in love with something one day and hating it with a white hot passion the next is legendary so ask me again in a few days how I'm feeling about it because while today there is love, next week there could be hate. We shall see.

For the first time in a long time I'm glad to be done with Halloween. It's usually my favorite holiday since I'm a horror movie connoisseur and any excuse to dress up in a creative costume is a good time in my book. Unfortunately for the last 4 years I've been a recluse in my house either too lethargic to party or haven't been invited to any. (Fuck you to all of my friends.)

At first it didn't bother me and it was kind of fun to be the adult handing out candy to the little ones, watching the costume trends each year (thank gawd the Brittany singing slut phase is over) and putting myself into a diabetic coma stealing 184 fun-size snickers bars then dishing out handfuls of candy at the end of the night to excited and thankful munchkins totally scoring at the cool chicks house.

Well, those friggen days are over.

Now Halloween has turned into a spastic night of rushing around and sitting in fuckass traffic because it's only been daylight savings for a couple of days and great Odin's raven everyone in the world has forgotten how to fucking drive with the sun going down A WHOLE HOUR EARLIER and I find myself fretting and rushing and freaking out that I'm not going to get home in time to give out goodies or I'll possibly rip a cute kid off as they stand at un-opening door or spend the next 4 days scraping rotting eggs off my windows because my house sucked.

And to be even dumber, this year I decided to wait until Halloween night to buy my truckload of chocolate so it wouldn't be in the house and continually call to me with its evil, melodious voice to eaaaaattttt mmmmeeeeee. Which is a stupid plan anyway because I manage to have a pretty hefty supply of chocolate on hand at all times so who gives a fuck if there's whole bags at my disposal when I still eat chocolate every day anyway??

As it turned out, I doubly ripped myself off because the store I went to didn't have any of my Halloween favorites (100 Grand bar oh how I love thee) and I was forced to munch on mini Crunches with caramel (not too bad but I do not like soupy caramel that pours out all over my chin, it's gross), Reeses' sticks (sticks? who the fuck thought that up?), Butter fingers (these have paid for my dentists (is there supposed to be an apostrophe in there? I don't know) Lexus), something called S'mores (which should be called S'mawfuls because they were), and the only decent thing left, Milky Ways. Of which I only ate 1, 2, OK, 3.

Every year it's the same thing. I race home, change into something comfy, rip open the bags of candy and throw them in a bowl, get all settled on the couch when the doorbell rings and I feel like I can't get into anything because I'm up down up down and what do I do if I run out of candy and how late are these kids gonna prowl the neighborhood anyway? And where's the cat? Don't let the cat out! And should I even try to eat dinner or will I be passing out treats with a mouthful of Cesar salad? Gah. The pressure!

After I calmed the fuck down the night went OK. We put Rascal in the bedroom where she was actually happier since the front door never opens that many times in one day and she had a look on her face like we were surely letting an array of cat-eating monsters into the house. The kids were coming in infrequent but medium sized groups and all were saying their thanks yous, although one rug rat did give me a rather sarcastic trick-or-treat early on and proceeded to yell "break the door down" when he found my neighbors bell unanswered. Little thug.

I was glad to see everyone dressed up and some of my favorites were a totally cute young teenage girl made up like Elphaba from the muscial Wicked, which we had a 2 second bonding moment over, a zombie yellow M-n-M (why do kids insist on turning every damn innocuous character into a zombie?) and by far my favorite of the night, a 6 foot-plus teenage boy dressed as a giant penguin complete with red bow-tie and beaked hat. There's no way you could be annoyed at an older kid when seeing that standing in your doorway.

Things became quiet and we thought we were done being Willy Wonka for the night and got the DVD of An American Haunting ready to go but before we could hit play we heard some chatter outside and the doorbell rang again. It was almost 8:00 and I thought to myself, wtf, it's a little late, but whatever.

I opened to the door to see exactly what I was hoping I wouldn't. A group of snotty kids jamming themselves into my doorway none of which wore costumes. They were dressed in ratty sweats and shoving their pillow cases at me while muttering some half-hearted something-or-other.

And may I digress for one moment? Thank you. Just what is the thing with the pillow cases? In my day it was something our older brothers carried because they were maniac treaters who were allowed to stay out later than the rest of us and had the wherewithal and stamina to trek the 10 square miles of our large suburban area to practically fill those things to the brim then made assloads of cash selling off their booty for 2 weeks.

But from the evidence at my threshold last night darn near every damn kid is now dragging a pillow case around and it doesn't have any more candy in it than the 3 year-old Buzz Lightyear with the pumpkin bucket and Frankenstein head flashlight!

Why the 4 yards of fabric dead cheerleader? How many mini butterfingers do you think you'll be seeing hand-me-down ninja? Just what kind of haul do you think you're going to get in our small condo community tiny spiderman? Nothing near the magnitude of fekking bedclothes, I tell you what.

So, the late-comer hooligans are clamoring towards my candy bowl and as the one pushy boy practically tore my screen door off he blurted "we're the last ones so can we have it all?" Are you fucking kidding me? Listen, you little shit, it's hard enough for me to purchase half a metric ton of chocolate then give it away but you need to be reminded that for you it's FREE, as in YOU DIDN'T PAY FOR IT AND A STRANGER DID. A stranger who's opening her door to kids she doesn't know and giving them stuff FOR FREE.

Of course I said no and Mr. Party Pooper grumbled that he'd been ripped off after I gave him 2 pieces instead of the 3 I'd been giving everyone all night. Then another twerp in the group watches me put 2 pieces in her case and says "can I have more?". Wha wha Huh? COME ON!

What a bunch of greedy bastards!

I again said no and she turned on her heels without so much as a thanks. The last little girl looked sweet enough and I can't even remember if she said anything pleasing but she certainly didn't say anything assholish either so I dumped the rest of the bowl in her sack and told her she got it all because she didn't beg. I finally got a thank you out of that one and she went skipping past her companions sing-songing "I got the re-est because I didn't bay-egg" which finally made me smile. Little fuckers.

And where were all of these kids parents?? I didn't see a single one all night.

After that disappointing ending we turned off the lights and watched the scary movie that was mostly boring and a little confusing but had one scene that made me jump 3 feet vertically off the couch causing whitey to laugh at me for 5 minutes because he enjoys it when I piss my pants. (He is also a little fucker.) I don't recommend it unless you want to see Donald Sutherland get paid for not acting and copious scenes of raping ghosts. Although Sissy Spacek did a perfect Carrie face circa 1976 which was awesomely spooky.

Next year we're going out. And I might bring a pillow sham. Just in case.

p.s.

Dear Makers of Starburst:

Although I'm not a huge fan of the non-cocoa variety candy I am a consumer of most things made from sugar and on occasion will enjoy one of your sweet confections, even though if you don't chew them into oblivion it's like trying to swallow a hunk of half-solidified Elmer's glue with flavor.

Today as I was sneaking around the office hoping to pilfer some Halloween left-overs I was only able to come upon a bowl of your fruity chews. As I was jonesing for a high fructose corn syrup buzz I gladly grabbed a couple of Starburst duos.

I must tell you, whoever came up with the strawberry/watermelon combo should be at the least demoted to a position that does not require any heavy decision-making or involvement with the flavor process whatsoever. Middle management perhaps?

Even though those two tastes are delightful on their own, whatever you did to marry them into a single property is akin to, at best, a solid chunk of shower gel or a rancid piece of 10 year-old Hubba Bubba that offended my entire salivation system and tricked my senses causing my gag reflex to initiate making my head snap and my eyes water and most of the liquefied contents to shoot up the back of sinus and into my brain.

The result being that I nearly choked to death in a cubicle which is, in my opinion, one of the saddest most pathetic places to expire and I've had the misfortune of tasting the foul brew for the rest of the day.

However, your Aztec Punch Chew is delightful even though the name is gay.

Sincerely,

Betty