Walk your TV-addicted, frozen dinner loving ass outside and take a deep breath. The air is crisp, temperatures hover in the land of perfection. The leaves turned in secret, showcasing brilliant shades as their last hurrah before death -- enjoy raking 'em up loser!
Your fat, salty tears rain down on bathing suits, t-shirts, tank tops and shorts as you pack them away and unleash sweaters, jackets, boots and jeans to cover your body before your tan fades and you return to the land of Pasty White American. Mother nature is diverting the attention away from winter, which creeps upon us to steal sunlight and warmth and leave us with snow, ice and cabin fever.
Bah humbug.
Ah yes, it's fall. Maybe you enjoy the cooler temperatures or the return of all-American football. Foos-ball? Buncha overgrown monsters man-handlin' each other ... Maybe you're a piggie pig face and enjoy the food -- pumpkin flavored goodies, fall beers and comfort foods like chili and harvest fruits and vegetables -- and the excitement for more food with Thanksgiving and Christmas feasts knock, knock, knocking at your chamber door and your waist line.
Or maybe, just maybe, you're obsessed with Halloween.
There are folks who enjoy a good shock to the system, like offerings from television networks and movie channels -- i.e. AMC's Fearfest or "American Horror Story." Jason, Michael, Candyman, Mothman, Freddy ... rejoice! The freaks come out at night and so do you!
Some enjoy decorating their homes for trick-or-treaters, parties or for their own nick-knack-paddy-wack-give-a-dog-a-bone loving amusement from low-range Halloween fun to I-want-to-make-kids-cry -- pee filled tightie whities, skid marked briefs, nightmares and therapy appointments. Haunted house vs. Martha Stewart Living (pre-jail).
I'll never forget the Halloween, many moons ago, one of my sisters donned a full gorilla costume to answer the door and scared the neighborhood bully. Seeing his fat, tear-soaked face before he ran screaming from our front porch = bliss.
With big events, from holidays to celebrations, there are those who go overboard. Today, class, pinpoint your judgement viewfinder on costumes. When are you too old for costumes?
Halloween costumes start at infancy when parents dress babies as the cutest thing imaginable even though they can't walk or talk -- Tootsie Roll pops, Dalmatians, ladybugs, puppies ... or you're the spawn of Mr. and Mrs. Death Metal and were clad as Ozzy or Rob Zombie. Schwing!
As we age and become self-aware, we choose costumes. Most boys want to be Batman or Spiderman while girls choose a princess or Disney character or, in my case, a skeleton and, the following Halloween, a geisha. Anyway, kid-you was excited to dress up because your friends were excited, it's fun to pretend, and the All Mighty Free Candy image flashed non-stop in your brain. Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat. If you don't, I don't care, I'll pull down your underwear. This ends at age 12 -- although some rapscallions eek it out a few more years but that's awkward.
In high school there's a lull ... you could dress up for school but that'd be lame because you're in high school and everything is lame and you're so cool. So hip it hurts. So, you'll either dress up for a party or not at all. College is when the nonsense begins. Girls become all trick, no treat, and dress as slutty (insert costume here) -- there are always uncreative skanks who dress as prostitutes for Halloween. Lazy. Thanks to Mitt Romney's recent PBS attack (news flash liberals, Republicans have hated PBS for decades), there's even a slutty Big Bird, which makes Sesame Street mad.
After college, it's all parties and bars until you have children who need the trick-or-treat experience. I lack kids but drift farther away from a college mentality year after year until here I sit in the limbo realm. I know people my age, and older, who are gung-ho costume party people with their ensembles already signed, sealed, delivered. Bucko dollars were spent. Then again, I know others who could care less and won't don attire or, possibly, don something deemed lazy by gung-ho costume party people. I'm floating, somewhat interested in adorning my body in ridiculousness but less interested because of money, time and self-respect. I'm getting too old for this nonsense or am I?
Also, what am I supposed to be? I'm spoken for in the relationship department for eternity so the female go-to slutty (insert costume here) is questionable. With that in mind, I'm a little long in the tooth to be anything juvenile. So, nothing slutty, nothing silly ... what then? Maybe it's because I'm not fanatical about anything. There are characters I love from movies, television, books and popular culture but then there's the dreaded you-dressed-up-as-someone-but-don't-really-look-like-them-so-people-ask-you-all-night-who-you-are phenomena. Also, yeah I like this, that and the other but not so much as to want to be them for an entire evening.
Maybe I should lighten up and have fun. Dance like nobody's watching as the hens say.
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