I Don't Want to Buy Cheese from a Zombie

My writer/editor pal Ben made that arm!
Pretty stinkin' cool!

I’m not a big fan of Halloween. I do love how my neighborhood comes alive with kids dressed as fairies, firemen, anyone from Star Wars or, in the case of my kids this year, batgirl and a banana. Yes, a banana. (I just went with it. He was an orange last year. Whatever.) I also love any opportunity to pull out the curling iron, Aqua Net, leg warmers and rock the 80s look again. I love pumpkins and pumpkin flavored things. And, who doesn’t love the Reese’s pumpkins? Are you kidding me? They’re awesome. They have more sugar than regular Reese’s cups. True story. I saw it on the Food Channel.  

I truly will take any opportunity to dress in 80s
regalia. My hair was a thing of wonder. People
could look upon it and be healed!

HOWEVER, I startle easy. I always have. I’m, as they say in the South, wound tight. I like to think of it as cat-like reflexes but, I will go with wound tight. I’m not easily scared by challenges and very rarely, very, very rarely intimidated by people. So, it’s not a matter of having a timid spirit. There’s just a few things for which I have a low tolerance, overt evil for one and clowns for another. Here are a few other things that really bug me…

1. I hate walking into my local drugstore and having something on a string fly at my face. Why do they do that? It’s hooked up to the door in some way and when you walk in, screech, screech, there it is! I’m in a drugstore, ok? Nobody goes to the drugstore because of their great selection of one type of toilet paper or low prices on nothing. No. If I’m in a drugstore I’m picking up medicine because somebody is sick or because I don’t have the energy to go to the grocery store. The last thing I need at 9:30PM when I’m just praying I can get that bottle of pepto before hell is unleashed in my pants, is a critter on a string flying at me! Ok?
2. On that line of thought, I also don’t care for statues reaching out at me, turning toward me and/or screaming at me. This is a craft store standard and it is just wrong. And you know it’s going to happen. You see the statue thingy there but the stupid popsicle sticks you need for your kid’s school project are right beside it. So you take a breath, reach for the popsicle sticks and the motion sensor magic thing in the statue go off and it lunges for you. During what other holiday is this acceptable??? Sure at Christmas, a Santa may sing. But it doesn’t make a move for you and laugh sadistically afterward. And, tell me this, how do you think it would go over if these craft stores put Jesus statues out at Easter that when you walked past, they reached out and yelled, “I’m back from the dead!” Are you kidding me? People would pitch a fit saying their civil rights were violated. Oh yeah? Well so are mine when a hand reaches up out of a candy bowl at me. I have a right to get a Reese’s pumpkin without fear of retaliation from the bowl!
3. Please explain to me how is it ok for people to throw severed body parts around their yard during Halloween? There are folks in my neighborhood that have smoking cauldrens/altars with bloody leg stumps hanging out. I tell you, in October, if you really are a serial killer, you can just let it all hang out, throw your issues out in the street, literally, and nobody will say a word. (Except, you might get a Creepiest House award from the HOA.) I have a right to go to the mailbox without stepping over a severed finger or tolerating a Chucky doll staring at me from somebody’s upstairs window. If I sat in my upstairs window and made a face like that and ogled folks as they walked to the mailbox, my HOA would send a letter posthaste and I would be butchered on the neighborhood FB page by the very people that have a Chucky doll looking out their upstairs window and severed heads on their porch! 
4. Also, I should be able to watch Jimmy Fallon without having to close my eyes during the commercials. Look, I like shows like The Walking Dead, but I know what I’m about to see and I watch that show like normal people: during the day, with the shades up, the house alarm on and with a cross bow beside me. But, before I have a chance to fast forward through commercials on late night shows, a clown rushes up at the screen at me. A CLOWN! Are you kidding me? You shouldn’t be able to put something like that on TV unless the TV can also dispense anti anxiety medication during said commercial. A….CLOWN!!!!!! 
5. Speaking of Walking Dead, don’t show up at my door with an ax in your head. Period. And, I don’t want to see your 2 year old as a zombie either. The Walking Dead won’t even show zombie babies. That should tell you something. And, while I’m on the subject, I also don’t want to see them at the express check out at Kroger and certainly not behind the deli counter. You do realize that if (when!) a zombie apocalypse happens, lots of people are going to be killed not in the street, not on a bus or other public place difficult to escape, but while buying baby swiss or for the simple fact they only needed to buy fewer than 12 items.

  There’s no tidy ending to this post, no nice recap. I’m too creeped out by the clown thing to continue…