Ben is out of town for the night. So Silas and I (and Eden) ate a "picnic dinner" in the car (i.e. had drive-thru McDonald's hamburgers and a milkshake), drove-thru the library return (only a day late), stopped by a craft store and found pumpkins and had a perfectly lovely time until we walked into K-Mart.
What you should know is that my whole life, I have defended Halloween. More than that I have adored it -- pumpkin patches, jack-o-lanterns, the smells of winter and dry leaves laced into the evening, glow sticks, the bizarre tradition of giving sweets to complete strangers who arrive on the doorstep dressed as chickens, princesses, mini-witches, gorillas, huge sacs of candy, the surveying of the goods and sorting into types, the examining for hidden razor blades (did everyone do this growing up, or just us?), the abundance of snickers and reeces cups for days to come...
Tonight Halloween and I broke up. And it's a bitter break up. I've spun on my heels, stormed out the door, and don't think I'll be back.
What happened is this: cheery two year old Silas, who had just finished a vanilla milkshake, and I walked into Kmart looking for marbles. As soon as we walked in and turned left toward the gardening center, I saw in front of us -- middle of the aisle -- a life-sized green-faced, yellow-eyed, disgusting rubber man gurgling creepy sounds. Just as I was about to turn to Silas, the man lifted his own severed head off. I looked down hoping to make light of it and saw FEAR plastered on Silas's face as he started crying. A cry I don't know -- feet rooted to the floor, eyes full of something causing terror.
I was so thrown I felt like I was moving through mud. I scooped him up, held his eyes closed, and pushed past as fast as I could. My chest ached and I was seething, only to find we were trapped in the gardening section (it is hard to write this entry without dropping f-bombs in every sentence) because there was NO WAY OUT of the store without passing the sick monster again.
So I ran, and Silas -- Silas who refuses to keep his head down or close his eyes EVER -- buried his head in my neck saying, "I want to go home. I want to go home."
You can imagine the conversation I had with the manager on my way out of the store, as he clung to me with his eyes still closed, head on my chest.
And so Halloween and I are through.
3 comments:
hi...i stumbled on your blog tonight and can totally relate to your break up with halloween. I don't mind the dress up and candy but the terrorizing of children with unsightly creatures is just not right...especially when they are things they are never exposed to anyway. And those things are found everywhere you turn months ahead of time.
Awwww, I hate to see you two break up! Halloween is SO MUCH fun. Then again, my daughter yells, "BRAINS!" when we are playing Tickle Zombies, so maybe she's a little jaded for a 2 year old.
I really think you should break up with Kmart, not Halloween. I broke up with Kmart a long time ago, after I was terrorized by evil singing creepy mechanical Santas and sinister mechanical carolers with body movements befit of creepy Halloween decor, not sweet angelic singers.
At least the gory things at Halloween are supposed to look evil, whereas there is no excuse for all the hideous monstrosities seen at Xmas time. ;-)
It's not just Kmart either. I was terrorized recently by a monster at Michaels when I was buying embroidery supplies. I figured if there was any place to be safe that would be it. I was wrong. Dead wrong.
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