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Scary Space Thing!

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Today’s post comes from perennial sophomore Bubby Spamden, who has been held back so many times, he has more seniority than his teachers at Wendell Willkie High School.

Hi Mr. C.,

Me and my buddies are sure excited about tonight being Halloween AND Friday too!

There’s just something about running from house to house to fill up a pillowcase with teensy candy bars and then bingeing on them until you feel sick! And it’ll be even better because I don’t have to get up and go to school in the morning!

The biggest problem is figuring out how to dress. People say teenagers are lazy when it comes to Halloween. The guys I know make a big deal out of Not Trying Too Hard.

Last year my pal Willie got a roll of fifty “Hello, My Name Is …” tags, wrote a different name on each one, and then stuck them all on the front of his shirt except one, which he put in the middle of his forehead.

When people asked, he said he was dressed as “Identity Theft”.

That’s super cool, and also really lazy. But people seemed to like it, and a lot of them asked if he thought up the idea himself, which he didn’t, so he said “No, I stole it,” which made them laugh even MORE!

I had a great idea for a costume last night – A Comet!!! And here’s the reason. They’re bright, scary and FAST!

But the thing that really sealed the deal for me was this article. It says that probe that’s about to land on the comet called 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko has some kind of electronic nose, and it did some sniffing tests and radioed back that the comet smells like combination of horse urine, vinegar and rotten eggs.

Ugh!

But also … Sweet!

I was hoping to get my mom on board with this. I know we don’t have any horse urine but I asked her if we had some vinegar and rotten eggs, and she said she wouldn’t help with that part because it’s gross.

And as far as the costume goes, she looked up some instructions online and said it’s just too hard for ordinary people to make. I guess I can’t complain but how can it be harder than landing on a comet? I mean, c’mon!

She also said some pretty mean things about papier Mache. You make the comet’s head by mixing newspaper and paste and then layering it on a beach ball.

“It’s too fussy”, she said. “We’d have to wait at least three days to let it dry and by that time it would be Sunday.”

So I guess I waited too long, once again!

But I did find a great big Sun mask, so I suppose that’ll have to do.

People will say I’m the Sun, but I’ll have to argue with them. “No, I’m a Comet!” A stinky, rude one!” I wonder if they’ll buy that? I’m fast, so that’ll help. And maybe I’ll throw some handfuls of glitter behind me. Until it runs out anyway. Hope I don’t get arrested for littering, but my excuse will be “Comets are dirty.”

If people don’t like it, they can tell it to the Comet Head.

I wish it weren’t smiling, though.

Your Pal,
Bubby

What’s your best last-minute dress-up idea?

The Baboon Congress

Halloween Hijinks

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Today’s guest post comes from tim.

My 13-year-old daughter is very excited that Halloween is on Friday night this year.

She asked me about the origins of Halloween and I being a good recovering Catholic coming from a good Catholic household knew that Halloween is the celebration of the fighting from the spirits on the day before all souls day.

On all souls day heaven comes down and takes the good spirits directly to heaven with no stop in purgatory on the way but if you’re not  a good spirit you may end up going to hell instead.

My father was a person who was involved in activities at the Catholic church and was asked on numerous occasions to spend the night of all souls day in church guarding against the possibility that the spirits could be taken to evil places if they were not guarded properly.  This evolved into our wearing costumes and hiding from the demons.

When people from other parts of the world, and ask what is this Halloween holiday it’s a hard one to explain.

“Well we have the children dressed up as ghosts and goblins and they go knock on peoples doors and threatened that we will trick you if you don’t give us a treat and beg for candy expecting for the house to be prepared for our begging.  Some of the side benefits are that you can go to someone’s house you don’t like and toilet paper their tree sold their windows egg their cars and do awful things to people in the name of the holiday tradition.”

I remember my favorite costume was that of a pirate in fifth-grade complete with big blousey sleeves on my pirate shirt.

In later life I went to the barbershop and got hair clippings to glue on  along with a putty nose to complete my Wolfman attire.

At my house now if I get 10 kids it’s a big year – this is because of my long driveway.

My work associate took great delight in hiding in the bushes outside his house so that when children came to get candy from his wife at the door upon their turning around to leave the house he would spring out with raised hands and yell boo and make them cry and run away sometimes dropping the candy bags they were so scared.

I think any place that allows people to exhibit such behavior should be celebrated.  We are such a predictable anal society today that I think finding an excuse for people to get into costume and take on identities while dangerous is also good therapy.

It makes me think that I should start contemplating my costumes once again.  The only thing that’s kept me from doing it is the realization that it’s just going to be for those 10 kids to come down the driveway.

What would you be if you could?