Smashing Pumpkins

Katie brought up many good points. Halloween is probably the best holiday ever stolen from the pagans. My Halloween stories are full of adventure, excitement and suspense that could fill the books.

One year after we had sorted and counted out our ten pound bounty, Katie's father, bearing an afro wig, got the urge to smash pumpkins (perhaps nostalgia). You can assume we were more than willing to participate. Now being an upstanding community member he didn't feel comfortable stealing a pumpkin off a front porch, like we were and had done so many times, so we went looking for pumpkins to buy and then smash in the parking lot of the County Market. Genius! By doing this we were no longer breaking any burglary laws, and I suppose we would clean up all the pumpkin pieces when we were done with the smashing ritual, which is preformed by thousands of citizens every Halloween, to prevent the risk of receiving a littering citation.

Much to our dismay, pumpkins are no longer sold on the night of Halloween. By that time they had been packed up in boxes and shipped to the land of post expiration dates. I guess the stores figure, if you don't have a pumpkin yet, you don't need one two hours before the holiday is over. Not one store had a living pumpkin in their possession. Jerry’s IGA, no. Jewel-Osco, no. Not even the ghetto County Market in Downtown Urbana, which we were hoping they had lazy employees who hadn’t taken down the pumpkin displays.

No pumpkins. Now, this would put a damper on most people’s evening. The whole point of our adventure was to smash pumpkins into oblivion. And even though this event never occurred the process of driving from store to store in our costumes, eating more candy then is good for you, singing along to Queen and the Monster Mash on the radio, and laughing so hard we could swear we would pee our pants, was probably more fun than the actual pumpkin demolishing would ever be.

Smell My Feet

Halloween's coming up. I bet you're thinking about what slutty outfit to wear to your party, or at least how you can get away with wearing a costume that's not overdone, but something that people can clearly tell you at least tried. What could be worse than going to a Halloween party where the other guests really aren't sure whether what you're wearing is truly a get-up, or you're just an awful dresser. I mean, seriously...I've had teachers who are so badly dressed you want to know what holiday they're dressed up for, but then you realize...that's just their "blue outfit" that they purchased in East Berlin before the wall was torn down.
What I really want to get to here though, is not about Halloween parties. It's about the nostalgia I have about trick-or-treating.
What kind of trick-or-treater were you? Beth and I were the only professional trick-or-treaters I have ever known. Every year from 7th grade to 11th grade, we went trick-or-treating. Not to casually peruse the neighborhood, or show off our costumes. But to collect candy like it was our JOB. We learned that pillow cases are indeed the best bag to collect candy in, and that running from door to door was the only way to get more candy than the year before. And how did we know which year was the most successful? Duh! We weighed the bags when we got home!
What next? We'd spread it all out on the carpet, trade things we didn't want, throw out the stuff we knew we'd never eat (those nasty orange peanuts and those nasty peanut butter pieces of crap wrapped in either orange or black wrappers). Then we'd make piles of things that were similar in either constitution or desirability. Then we'd stash it in a secret place, taking out a few choice pieces for lunch every day. Of course, this is not a comprehensive documentation of all the nuances and distinctions we had about candy hoarding. That all will have to go somewhere else. But I will let you in on one final secret: I still have some candy saved from the last time we went trick-or-treating together. It hasn't gotten moldy, been discovered by pests, rotted, or started stinking. In fact, the only things in that cache are things with a twinkie-like composition, meaning they don't go bad, they petrify. (Incidentally, I recently told this story to some coworkers, and they suggested that I take some of this candy and send it to beth as a gift).
I wonder how Halloween fits into other peoples' memories. It's a collective experience we all share, yet I feel that everyone must have had a unique experience somewhere along the way. Do share!

Oh Judy!

I have a confession to make. Promise not to laugh, but I love Judge Judy. Every afternoon at 4pm I close the blinds, turn up the TV and tune into channel 8. Judy calls it like it is. I wish I could talk to people at work the way she does. Several times a day her, “If you act like an idiot, I’m going to treat you like an idiot” line pops into my head. Classic. Usually when she delivers, it’s well deserved.

To me, Judy runs on common sense. Things like: don't hurt, don't steal, and don’t do things that are harmful to yourself or others. Duh! But is seems like there are a lot of people out there who find it impossible to follow these simple steps. That’s when her show gets really good. She spots the liars, crooks, and phonies and calls them out, “I eat morons like you up for breakfast!” I pitty the fool that agrees to go on her show.

Now, I know I’m not alone here. Judy says that “10 million people watch her show daily” So, I can be pretty sure I’m not the only one who wishes there was a Judy channel. All Judy, all the time. I think we’d all be a little smarter, but ‘on out best day, we wouldn’t be as smart as her on her worst’.

Check out this Judy soundboard.