Ten Things I Hate About Halloween
by Jonathan David Morris
jdm@readjdm.com

Special to TLE

I decided to call this article "Ten Things I Hate About Halloween." I'm not going to belabor the point with a long, drawn-out opening paragraph. On with the reasons:

10. Halloween greeting cards. Yeah, that's right. They sell Halloween greeting cards now. Apparently we're so incapable of interpersonal communication in this country that we need Hallmark to pump out a steady stream of year-round greetings just to help us keep in touch with our loved ones. America, you should hate yourself for living in a nation that allows this insanity. What could you possibly have to say to someone on Halloween that you need a card for? You can't just pick up the phone? It's 2005. Get with the program.

9. People who get creative with the candy they hand out. Listen: If you're going to hand out candy, stick to the essentials, okay? Twix. Snickers. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. The occasional Mounds or Almond Joy. Butterfingers. Stuff like that. Kit Kats, I'm cool with. Hershey Nuggets, too. But some people feel the need to do something "different," and it never works out in the end. This includes the nice ladies who tie Kleenex tissues to Charms Blow Pops and pretend they're Halloween ghosts. But more importantly, it includes anyone who hands out non-chocolate candies—especially the kind with red and yellow wrappers. Listen to me, because I am only going to say this once. Don't hand out this kind of candy anymore. Mary Janes. Bit-O-Honeys. Nobody eats this stuff. It just ends up at the bottom of the candy basket, where it sits for several months until someone comes home from work desperate for candy, opens it, and cracks a tooth because it's stale. If this is the candy you're going to give out, save your money, all right? And while I'm on the subject, don't hand out pennies anymore, either. It's pathetic. They start selling Halloween candy during the summer nowadays. You mean to tell me you didn't have a chance to get to the store any time between mid August and October 31st? That's ridiculous. Spare me your sympathy. If you're gonna hand out pennies, turn off the lights and pretend you're not home.

8. Racism. Halloween perpetuates the stereotype that black cats are bad luck, which, as a black cat owner, I can tell you is patently untrue. You know who's bad luck? Women and white basketball players. There, I said it. Stick that in your Freddy mask and smoke it.

7. Fun uses of the word "ghoul." This includes "boys and ghouls," "Ghoul-Aid," and any football reference that ends with the term, "over the ghoul line." Anyone old enough to spell the word "ghoul" should no longer find this stuff even mildly amusing.

6. The Halloween store that opens up in the mall two months before Halloween, then becomes a Christmas store until New Year's, then vanishes altogether until two months before the following Halloween. This store frustrates me. Where does it disappear to after December? How does being open four months a year constitute a viable business model? I take five days off all year long. These people sell vampire teeth and mistletoe for twelve weeks and spend the next eight months on vacation. This makes me so angry.

5. People who try to guilt you into getting dressed for Halloween, as if there's something noble about partying with a room full of "witches," "cats," and grown men dressed like grown women. Every year it's the same thing. Just when I think I'm in the clear, someone invites me to a costume party. I never have a costume ready, so I end up throwing something together—which means I end up looking just as dumb as I feel. I hate this. "Come on, it's fun," people tell me. No. Writing my name in the snow with my urine is fun. Partying with sixteen variations of "Satan" is horrific. Any other time of year, people would kick this guy out of their house. On Halloween, they welcome him in for a cup of spiked punch and tortilla chips covered in some girl's crappy batch of runny guacamole. Enough is enough already. Just once I'd like to see one of these Halloween Satans put his hands on the stove and keep them there the entire evening. That would be fun for me.

4. Anything that's supposed to scare me. This includes plastic spiders, the word "haunted," and the decidedly real-looking dead children posed on your front lawn. I'm sorry, but none of this stuff scares me. Not even the decidedly real-looking dead children. If you really want to spook me, try throwing a party where everyone comes dressed like a government program.

3. People who leave a bowl of candy on their front porch with a note asking neighborhood kids not to take more than one piece of candy each. Their faith in mankind offends me.

2. Anyone who knows the whole story behind Halloween. Oh, there's a know-it-all in every bunch, isn't there? Someone who's so cool because they know the word "Celtic" is pronounced "kell-tick," not "sell-tick"? Hey, good for you, lady. Maybe next you can paint your face white and sing a Fiona Apple album for us. Quit yapping already. And keep your damn TP and shaving cream away from my car.

1. People who say Halloween is their "favorite holiday." If I had a dollar for every time I've heard this, I'd have enough money to buy a gun and shoot these people just for saying something so stupid. Do you realize how spiritually empty you'd have to be to pick Halloween as your "favorite holiday"? Just think about all the other holidays you passed over. Christmas and Easter. Chanukah. Yom Kippur. Kwanzaa. Super Bowl Sunday. Groundhog Day. Black History Month. Hell, you even passed over Passover. We celebrate 690 different holidays in this country. We have more holidays than we can fit in a calendar year. And you picked the day where you dress like a moron and collect free cavities from your neighbors? That's it? That's your favorite holiday? That's like having a testicle that you "wouldn't mind losing."

Jonathan David Morris writes a weekly column for "The Aquarian" and other publications. He can be reached at jdm@readjdm.com.

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