Blood, Sweat and Fears

By Diana Grove

     Many people spend months planning for and looking forward to Christmas.  But clearly these individuals are misguided.  By now everyone should know that Halloween is “the most wonderful time of the year.”
     Christmas is for pantywaists and those who eat their food in log form.  And most other holidays really aren’t even worth mentioning.  After all, other than maybe Valentines Day or National Bosses Day, what other holiday justifies the purchase of fake blood?  Actually, I like to keep some on hand year round, in case I have to fake an accident to gain sympathy from strangers.
      Halloween is also an excellent time to buy otherwise useless items like gourds, rubber insects and just about anything glow-in-the-dark (bouncing eyeballs, plastic fangs… toilet seats.)
      Also, it’s really the only holiday that fosters true creativity in children.  On Easter there are always eggs and a bunny.  Valentine's Day – a red heart.  Thanksgiving – brown decorations and poultry.  Christmas is slightly better because there are homemade ornaments and gifts involved, but let’s face it, nobody ever gets a pony, no matter how good they’ve been.  But on Halloween, all bets are off.  A kid can be as weird or silly or scary as he or she wants, as long as they don’t hurt anyone (excluding younger siblings, who most likely deserve it.)
      If you really examine it, costumes are probably the heart of Halloween.  (Which I suppose makes decorations either the stomach or the large intestine.)  Designing a thoroughly unique Halloween costume should be on the minds of all of our nation’s youth just as soon as the first leaf starts to brown and wither.  Of course, if they’re at all worth their salt, they should have the plans drawn up by Independence Day at the very latest. 
      If you find you’re not terribly creative when it comes to designing a Holloween costume, it’s often helpful to rely on one’s powers of observation.  If you can’t think of anything right off the bat, just look around you, what do you see?  A table, a lamp, some throw pillows.  Why not just get some friends together and go as a livingroom ensemble?  It would probably take weeks for your Mom to realize the coffee table has a big, head-sized hole cut in the center of it.  Why?  Because that’s where you’ll strategically place the candy dish after the big night’s finally over.
      If you’re not keen on dressing as an inanimate object, and you’ve spent all of your extra money on Andy Capp’s Hot Fries or James at Sixteen trading cards and you can’t afford to buy any decent material for a costume, do something really scary.  Go as your parents!  Dozens of horrifying costumes await you in their closet; like Dad’s golf pants and fake Russian hat (a winning combination on a chilly October night.)  Or maybe Mom’s brown, synthetic dress from her 1972 high school reunion (which, incidentally, was also her back up dress for last years Methodist mixer entitled “Hip-Hoppin’ For Hosanna.”)  The shoes alone should scare the life out of even the most fashion impaired individual.
      For people with absolutely no imagination, or for those who are a little bit dim in the attic, sometimes the simplest things can be the most rewarding.  A cardboard box can be transformed into a myriad of wonderful costumes; like a ballot box, a washing machine, a skyscraper or, with a little shaping – a nuclear testing facility. 
      It doesn’t take an Einstein to realize that the scarier your costumes and decorations are on Halloween, the more fun everyone’s going to have.  That’s why I say “play it up to the hilt!”  I’ve also been known to say “a stitch in time saves nine!”and “let’s feed ‘em a rubber cracker and see how it turns out!”  Anyway, this is the only time of year you can actually walk around the neighborhood with a plastic decapitated head and not be arrested, so you’d better milk it for all it’s worth.
      Gory costumes are always a big hit on Halloween night, and this is where sweat equity really pays off.  You can be as creative as you want, but basically, the more you ooze and look like something left over from The Great War, the more you’ll scare the pants off the younger kids and the little old ladies who hand out stale popcorn balls that somehow always smell like damp poodles.  To augment your look, I recommend using plenty of tomato paste and lots and lots of Vaseline Intensive Care.  Moaning, gurgling or even spitting various fluids is a nice touch.  However, falling down or other time-wasting displays will only stymie your main objective, which is: TO GET AS MUCH TOOTH-ROTTING CANDY IN A TWO HOUR TIME FRAME AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE!  
     And remember, orange and brown taffy doesn’t count.  Nobody is supposed to eat that crap anyway – it’s reserved strictly for throwing at little kids in bunny costumes.
      I think if you want to impress your older neighbors with a certain precocious sophistication, yet still scare the hell out of them, you should go as The Cold War.  You’ll have to really use your imagination on this one.  Just make sure you carry a dry martini with you and smoke plenty of unfiltered cigarettes.  Instead of saying “Trick or Treat!” look grave, yet somehow devil may care and say “Don’t worry, President Kennedy says it will be mutually assured destruction.”  Who knows, maybe you’ll get a Laffy Taffy and some canned goods from the old bomb shelter out back.
      I know getting lots of candy on Halloween is the main objective, but it really isn’t very scary.  When the kids come ringing my doorbell, I like to ladle out something really disgusting, like giblets from a big, industrial-sized bucket.  There really is something shocking about having moist and slimy organ meat co-mingling with Skittles and Circus Peanuts. 
     If you find that a bit too indelicate, and you’re more of the Martha Stewart type, handing out turkey necks can be just as rewarding.  If you want, you can even put clever little orange and black crepe paper neck ties on them. 
     If you’re a vegetarian, you can simply hand out brussel sprouts, or some other tiny, brain-like vegetable.  I tried that last year and was shocked to find kids coming back two or three times.  To this day I don’t know if they were organizing some kind of mail box-related brussel sprout ambush, or if they were actually planning a vegetable dish for next week’s pot roast.
      After costumes and treats, decorations take center stage.  And by all means decorate!  If you don’t, people won’t be able to distinguish Halloween from United Nations Day, which, incidentally, takes place without much fan fare the week before with far fewer costumes.
      When decorating, I like to take the natural approach.  Which means looking around the house for anything that, if not quite horrifying now, could with little effort be transformed into something that could truly scare the bejeezus out of even the most jaded trick-or-treater. 
      In times like these, I turn to cabbage.  Cabbage has the benefit of both resembling a decapitated head and smelling like a decapitated head that’s been left out in the sun for a week.  And cabbage heads can be decorated any which way really, just make sure you have at least two eyes, a nose and a mouth, otherwise it’s going to look like your grocery bag broke half-way from the pick-up truck to the front door.
      I also like to decorate the yard with stuffed scarecrows which I fashion into my favorite dead politicians.  Out in the back I’ve got Leonid Brezhnev, because his eyebrows are easy to replicate with a couple of Twix Bars.  And in front, I’ve got President Thomas Jefferson, a personal favorite because of his shrewd purchase of the great state of Louisiana, among other things. 
     Imagine if he hadn’t purchased Louisiana.  We’d have no accordion music, no decent bean recipes, no drinks that involve chicory, and no place to bare  breasts in public without getting arrested. 
      Could there really be anyone remaining who still thinks Christmas is the king of American holidays?  Nobody could possibly have this much fun on Christmas.  Unless, of course, you were to get drunk on Sloe Gin Flips, dress as The Ghost of Christmas Past and knock over the tree, angel and all.  Or, you could dress as an elf and parade around the shopping mall, directing kids to the redheaded Santa Claus wearing Malcolm X glasses and Band-Aids on his fingers.  That, I imagine, could be quite scary.