Halloween: Now

The first time I attended a Halloween party that was not sponsored by the Brownies, I was in high school and dating a much older man who, embarrassingly, had gone to high school with my mass communications teacher. I did jello shots until I couldn't stand, at which point I switched to my first-ever shots of Goldschlager, which if you don't know, is a liqueur with tiny slivers of pure gold swimming in it. Unfortunately, I didn't know, and in my jello-shot-state of inebriation, I was led to believe that they were in fact tiny fishes, that were now alive and swimming lustily in my stomach.

The next Halloween Jason and I signed up for a Haunted Tour of Ottawa - basically, a guide wearing a silly cape (drama students, all of them, you can be sure) walks you through the city, by light of a lantern (I know, can you stand it?) pointing out all the spots where ghosts are said to reside and recounting the "spooky" sightings - more basically, 90 minutes spent trying not to pee my pants. At each site, the group would stand in front of the building (one of which was Friday's Roast Beef House - I mean, what the fuck is scary about roast beef, besides the obvious?), and we would all squint trying to make out the ghosts in the upper windows (ghosts never hang out on the first floor) and we would all become hyper-conscious of the hairs on the backs of our necks, which is the only real way to detect the presence of a supernatural being, despite what you may have been lead to believe by the Ghost Busters.

The Halloween after that we were invited to a party, and though we are not accustomed to turning down an invitation, we strongly considered it since this one was extended with a caveat - you must wear a costume. Good gravy. No, I am not an adult enjoyer of costumes. But we went to a big box store in Gloucester anyway, in an effort to appease our hosts, where we encountered what I can only describe as The Thing That Is Most Wrong With Society Today. As I flipped through the catalogue of potential costumes, this is what I saw: sexy nurse, sexy cop, sexy angel, sexy devil, sexy maid, sexy cheerleader, sexy witch, and then a whole section entitled pimps and hos. A fine example of the human spirit, if you will. Clearly, Halloween has become a misnomer, and should henceforth be called "The Trampiest Day of the Year".

And so that's when I quit Halloweening.
Except Jason has this delusion that he's hosting a party tonight that will involve beer drinking and scary-movie-watching. I'm not normally what you would call "anti-social", but if it involves anything scarier than say, The Lion King, then count me the fuck out.

The End.

Halloween: Then