Kakahead

Hallowe’en is a bit of a strange holiday to begin with, but it evolves into something more ghoulish every year: COMMERCIALISM. Is that a word?? I guess so… My friends call me a “tree hugger.” I guess I am. I go around hugging trees all day long and tell them I love them. Well maybe I don’t really do that… but all of the products that have sprung up for holiday celebrations have me wondering just how much more of all this manufacturing madness Mother Nature can take.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy jack o’ lanterns and fake skeletons and stuff like that there, but lights?? We never had Hallowe’en lights when I was a kid. Christmas lights, yes. But Hallowe’en lights?? Sounds like an oxymoron to me. I mean, Hallowe’en is all about having the wits frightened out of you IN THE DARK by witches and hobgoblins and such. So all these happy Hallowe’en lights are making big brightness of the night which transforms a perfectly scary night into orange-on-black-holy-cow-look-at-all-the-lights-on-that-house happy joy dead monsters fun world.

Or something.

Yes, they are cool in their own Hallowe’eny way… but I’m thinking maybe some of our neighborhood electric meters are going so fast they’re ready to blow an axle. And how in the heck do you sneak up on someone with all that light?? Sheesh. Now you wanna hear something really weird: when we were kids it was “cool” to walk around on Hallowe’en with a big fat sock full of flour. Why? So you could sneak up on people and bop them with it!! Makes a nice big mark that is really fun to apply, and easy to get off. And it looks totally cool when you swing your sock full of flour and connect with someone’s back or maybe their booty (never the face or head… this was supposed to be FUN). A direct hit produced a big “POOF!!” of white powder all over the place, and of course a nice sock print on the point of impact. This prank relied on darkness. You can’t sneak up on anyone in the midst of all these blazing Hallowe’en lights.

Simpler times… I know. Frankenstein’s monster scared the living crap out of us, because we just KNEW he was lurking in the dark. One dare not poke along on the Trick Or Treat mission, or “The monster” was surely going to jump out and rip us all apart. So we’d scurry from house to house with our pillow cases to get those yummy Black Cow suckers, Jujubes, Neccos and Mary Janes. And if you were lucky enough to hit a well-to-do neighborhood, you could even score a fair amount of chocolate! Once in a great while you’d stumble upon the “bad kids” who actually had eggs. Everyone knew the “bad kids”… and worse yet, you knew they would actually throw the eggs. At other people no less!! And again, successful egg tossing required a secret ingredient: darkness.

Well, Frankenstein’s monster is considered a big wuss now. Sure, in movies of yore the monster did indeed kill people, and the villagers told of his awesome strength and the ability to tear men apart with his bare hands. But these days, such a movie would flop unless the monster was shown opening his victims’ bodies with a machete, eating their kidneys, and washing them down with a Sierra Mist. No eating brains just yet…

And it’s all because of those stupid Hallowe’en lights I’m tellin’ ya!!

Ok, maybe not.

I hope all of you have a safe and Happy Hallowe’en. Maybe I’ll dress up like a dust mop and go hide behind the firewood pile or something. Should be nice and dark back there… We live “in the sticks” so we probably won’t get many Trick or Treaters.

That’s very OK. More chocolate for ME!!