There is no better time than mid-October. The obscene heat of the summer has passed
into memory and the countdown to Christmas is at least a good three weeks away.
Of all holidays, I think Halloween is my favorite. Maybe it speaks to the abnormal paranormal in
me. With no “other” worldly experiences
of my own, I anxiously scour the plethora of TV listings for ghost stories and
tales of the occult, like a child awaiting Christmas specials.
As a kid, I would happily hum “Five Little Pumpkins” as I
cut out purple bats from ratty construction paper. “Have You Seen the Ghost of John?” was
carefully harnessed to doctoring simple treble clefs into witches on broomstick.
It shouldn’t surprise that one of my first preteen parties was
not a birthday party, but a Halloween bash.
I presented my clairvoyant self with my cardboard Ouija Board to a room
full of sixth graders.
It was then I first learned that not everyone is an
enthusiast of the occult. One friend
left the séance before I had a chance to uncork my tarot cards.
She needn’t have worried.
The sixth sense eludes me.
This year, my grown up quandary revolves around
three-year-old Max who, it also turns out, shirks the dark side.
Store displays of rattling skeletons and cackling witches
bring him to a near catatonic state before breaking free in convulsions of sobs
and tremors. I almost expect him to
extend and bend his index finger while chanting, “Max isn’t here, Mrs. Torrance.”
His pirate costume, hanging along side of Kenny’s fireman
suit, will most likely remain unworn.
Mostly because no boy really wants a to wear a Seinfeld puffy shirt and
the act of trick or treating down a street with kids in costumes is likely to
put him into an inmate-state-of-mind.
The lure of candy is not enough.
This past weekend, as I folded laundry and watched Scariest
Halloween Attractions on the Travel Channel, Max’s one eye was transfixed on
the screen while the rest of him was tightly wound around my legs.
Michael Myers, and zombies, and witches, oh my!
Ironically, I can relate.
As intrigued with the Halloween genre as I am, I wouldn’t last any
longer than the opening credits in any slasher movie. Better I lie down and
wait for the inevitable, than to trip and fall in exaggerated procrastination to
my death. Our recent excursion to
Sandusky’s Haunted Manor only confirms that.
While my family laughed in hysterics, I became easy prey for the
actors.
It turns out, it doesn’t matter how brave a spectator you
are. What counts is how brave you are in
the trenches.
This Halloween, Max and I will probably trick or treat down
the candy aisle at WalMart, while the braver participants in our family brave
the city streets in search of loot. Max
can wear his puffy shirt while we watch The
Great Pumpkin. And I will smugly
enjoy the end of a season that inevitably will turn nightmarish as the
Christmas countdown draws near.
