So it's Halloween. Worst holiday ever invented. Yes, I know, it's for the kids and they're so cute and blah. My kids are cute in their normal clothes. Most kids are cute in their normal clothes. Many kids are not cute in Halloween costumes. In fact, they just look weird. Plasticky Darth Vader comstumes with no helmet (cause the helmet is hot of course). Furry puppy costumes that shed more than golden retriever. It's ridiculous.
And let's be honest, Halloween is not for the kids. Halloween is for the parents. It's to provide and excuse for proud papas like myself to have one more reason to take ridiculous pictures of their children and post them on facebook so that people can affirm me. I am a 21st century American and I covet your affirmation, particularly through "likes." (And followers... particularly followers. How is one to know that one's blog is witty, charming if one does not have an array of followers?) But I digress, back to the subject at hand. Halloween is (for reasons that I cannot possibly understand) an excuse for perfectly normal well-thinking adults the other 364 days a year to dress up like idiots and parade about using their equally dressed up children as shame-shields to protect them from the honest self-reflection of just how silly the whole thing is.
This is the part where some people reading this starting crying in a rage and tears begin shooting horizontally out of their eyes. It's gruesome to imagine, but what the hell, it's Halloween and gruesome is in style.
I'm not afraid of the rage. Bring on the haters, I say! Bring them on! A friend and coworker of mine (who knows who she is) absolutely loves Halloween. Is practically religious about it. I attempted to cancel the annual Halloween dress-up and potluck at my office this year (the only real use of positional authority I have ever undertaken) and was nearly run out of my office by people in tailored suits and pitchforks. She was in the lead wearing a pirate costume and sporting a particularly menacing sword. Call me nutty but I just think its a little weird for an office of white collar professionals to trade in the suits and ties for an afternoon of warmed over food and awkward costumes. One year a particularly hairy man showed up as a hooker in a belly shirt. I really thought that was going to end it. But, of course, it didn't. Not even a decree from the high office of regional vice president (my office: doesn't that sound important??) could shut down the Halloween frivolity. And that is because Halloween is an opportunity.
It's an opportunity to normally reasonable adults to act out their deeply held fantasy of dressing up like a very large chicken.
An opportunity to convince your boss that while you look like you just rolled out of bed and forgot to shower and get dress and behave like a civilized person, in reality you are dressed up like a "little boy in his PJs." (That's just gross by the way.)
An opportunity to drive down the street to where the houses are larger and they don't know
An opportunity to stand at the street corner in front of your mini van and smile as your kids beg absolute strangers for the most unhealthy food they will consume in the next 30 days.
An opportunity to post pictures of your kids on facebook and make witty comments about them for the benefit of your circle of "friends." (Check! Got that one done yesterday... there is a budding opportunist in us all... even me.)
An opportunity to destroy perfectly good clothes with ketchup and menacing makeup so as to finally achieve the heights of your All Hallow's aspirations: bloody ghoul vampire twilight monster dragon.
And so for a few more hours, I guess we have nothing left to do but to embrace the opportunism. Paint your face green and tie a rope around your neck. Splatter blood down your shirt and practice your most menacing grin. Find a McMansion half mile a way with the lights still on and see how many full-size candies they'll let you take before wondering just how long ago you crossed over through puberty. Rise to the occasion. Celebrate the quintessential value that makes Halloween a purely American holiday: opportunism.
Otherwise you'll have to wait another 365 days before it is culturally acceptable again to take advantage of your neighbors generosity, have an excuse to not clean up your yard for a month, and eat the most transfats you can in the shortest amount of time all in the name of a holiday. Take the plunge while you can friends, cause times like these don't roll around but once a year. It's opportunism time: Halloween style.
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