Halloween candy: a hate-ode.

Today, I made the annual offering to the sugar gods. By this, I mean I bought approximately seven pounds of Halloween candy. I knew it was Halloween candy, rather than just big bags of miniature sized packs of Milk Duds, Kit Kats, and other, crappier candy, because it had ghosts on the bags. That much sugar IS scary.

And not just because it is handed out in the darkening gloom, to children dressed up like zombies, kitty cats, pirates, droids, and Darth Vader. No, it's because it has to sit at my house for days before the handing out even happens. I'm pretty sure this isn't actually my fault, that the bag got torn open before I even got in the car to drive it from Target home. Okay, I tore it open. And extracted two mini boxes of Milk Duds. And ate one of them while I was driving to Trader Joe's. And then ate the other one while I was driving from Trader Joe's home. I may have also sampled the Kit Kats.

The historian came home from his afternoon of good works. "Oh!" he said, and took out a tiny pack of chocolate-y whatnot.

"Hey!" I said. And all that that implied, such as don't you eat the Halloween candy before Halloween! And: I don't want to have to go back to the store and buy MORE candy! And: crazy rabbit, Kit Kats are for kids!

Not that I had eaten the Halloween candy straight from the big bag, and also from the trunk of my car. Or skulkingly ate those Milk Duds one two three four whilst driving. Or anything like that.

Candy is the worst. Small candy is the worst of the worst. It acts like it's redefining the whole situation by its tininess, winningly announcing: How can I hurt you? I'm so tiny! I'm miniature! And then you've eaten, like, six boxes of Milk Duds (approximately) and it's only four o'clock, and it's still six days till Halloween.

Well, there it is. Halloween is here. The enemy is in the house. And, as usual, the enemy is us.

Reason #7: It's just another excuse for shenanigans.

Why Hallowe'en is a pain in my ass, a thorn in my side, the bane of my existence:

1. in the stores, they start making with the orange and black before summer is EVEN OVER.
2. candy corn: waste of sugar.
3. orange is one of my favorite colors, but if you wear it with black, you're always signaling Hallowe'en, even if you don't want to. Hallowe'en has imposed a color hegemony! Throw off your chains!
   
4. I HATE costumes.
5. I HATE horror, fake, satiric, or otherwise.
6. stupid fake spiderwebbery, dummies with knives stuck in 'em, skeletons of all reports, gravestones, ghostsheetery . . . the Hallowe'en decoration schema, gah.
   
7. just another excuse for shenanigans.
8. waste of perfectly good pumpkins.
9. I have a stick up my rear end? --don't think I haven't considered the possibility.
10. the kids want you to help them be things like Poison Ivy or a Darth Maul (or however you spell it). When I was a kid, you could be these things: Hobo, Gypsy, Little Girl (if you were a bigger girl), Witch. Also Ghost, if there happened to be a spare sheet.
    
11. What if there's a Jazz game on television during the trick or treating?
    
12. I HATE dressing up. Did I already mention this?
13. Frankly, I'm not crazy about other people dressing up--adults, that is. Boo, humbug.
    

I do like: giving the candy out; seeing cute little kids in their cute little costumes; the fact that it's October 31, and therefore right on the cusp of a new month, the change in season, the secular residue of a religious celebration (the eve of All Saints day); eating Bit-o-Honeys, which my kids always disdained and which I remember from my childhood.

And speaking of that, where are the candy cigarettes of yesteryear?

Possible Halloween costumes.

1. Grandma. I'm thinking of wearing a curly, graying hairstyle. (unlike every other day?)

2. Closet Yeti. I could wear all my sweaters and all my pants.

3. Procrastinator. Carrying my calendar around, sporting an anxious facial expression.

4. Cook. Since the setting would be nine tenths of the costume, you'd come see me at home, in my kitchen.

5. Political Freak. Wearing a constant digital feed of poll data.

6. Film Critic. Dyspeptic expression, pen light, with a perpetual rude remark on my lips--also, spouting my faulty recollections of crucial plot details.

7. Deconstructed Bruiser. First, I'd take transparent contact paper and press it against Bruiser's flanks, then construct a shirt, to be worn inside out. My expression would be soulful, canine, debonair.

Open to suggestions, though I will probably just be College Professor, on Sabbatical.

Important information for your head.

Tiny hotel rooms. (via digg)

Good news if you like Halloween (or, conversely, another reason I hate Halloween). (via The Cut)

And of course,