I hate Halloween. 2011 Edition.

Re: I hate Halloween.

Halloween is pretty big around here. Huge bar night. We'll see how it goes tonight.

 

Re: I hate Halloween.

Cheap decorations for you, though...'Hey, where'd you get those cool bones all over the lawn?'

 

Re: I hate Halloween.

Armchair's neighborhood:

 

Re: I hate Halloween.

This will be the first year neither of my kids will be trick-or-treating. Thank God. My plan is to wait until the neighborhood kids get about halfway up the bank on my front lawn, then turn on the sprinkler system.

 

Re: I hate Halloween.

I spent 12 years living in Kentucky, albeit Central. Have NEVER heard it pronounced as "hal-oween." It's been "Hollow-ween" whether it was Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, or Virginia.

I'm completely floored by this subsect of "hal"oweeners.

 

Re: I hate Halloween.

Spent most of my life in the Southwest and Southern Great Plains. Definitely "hal-oween" round these parts.

 

Re: I hate Halloween.

Yeah, hal-o-ween is how us southern-eastern folks call it.

 

Re: I hate Halloween.

Eight years ago, I was in Salem, Mass., for Halloween. Talk about a clusterfuck. Kind of like a Yankee Mardi Gras, with no nudity. I was working at the Hawthorne Hotel, and as soon as my shift was over, I got the fuck out of there and went back to Danvers, where my housemates and I hoisted a few and had a nice, low-key festival. That many roaring drunk people in one place scares me.

 

Re: I hate Halloween.

Grew up just a state away, ijag, albeit the far western side of Illinois, and it was hal there too.

 

Re: I hate Halloween.

Floored, floored I tell you.

 

Re: I hate Halloween.

Apparently it's too late to add a pronounciation poll.

But I am with ijag. Holloween.

This would be an excellent question for the next presidential debates.

 

Re: I hate Halloween.

This is the biggest holiday of the year in our house. Every year, we get more elaborate in our scaring of neighborhood children -- my philosphy is, if you want candy, you're going to earn it by pooping your pants and then doing the poopy-pants dance for me. That makes it much more fun. Now that we had a kid, too, it's just built everything up.

Right now, there are two mannequins on my porch, masquerading as my friend and I from last year, when we pretended to be stuffed -- leaves coming out of our shirts -- and then screamed in the faces of two-year-olds as they gingerly approached. I had parents coming down the street in advance of their kids pleading with me not to terrify them. No deal. No ticky, no laundry.

So, yeah, the dummies are built for the ol' bait-and-switch. I'll be hiding down beside the porch with a circular saw that makes a helluva din. My buddy is going to be on the other side with a hammerdrill. My wife is going to be upstairs with her head under the pillow.

We had a kid last year who jumped so bad he threw his candy out to the street -- that's like a forty-foot toss from our porch.

God, I can't hardly wait. I can hear their screaming now as in my dreams.