Pumpkin Spicy
Pumpkin Spicy
Halloween is—and remains—my favorite holiday. I take it seriously. So do my wife and kids. Here’s proof to that end:
While I take Halloween seriously, I also take fatherhood seriously, and because of that, it has been important to me to encourage my kids to watch horror movies, brave haunted houses, and confront all manner of frights, fictional and otherwise.
Much to my chagrin (i.e., my broken heart) my kids chose not to trick-or-treat this year. They’re growing up, like they’re supposed to, but as their father, I still feel obligated to leverage Halloween and prepare them to confront the fears that no doubt await them as they march into adulthood. What follows is the plan I laid out for Halloween 2024 to get my children ready for life.
It’s All Hallows’ Eve, you spooky shitbirds! The night of donning costumes so wildly inappropriate that a single Instagram post could haunt and/or damn any would-be middle-management LinkedIn opportunities for eternity. The night of begging for high-fructose corn syrup in various textures, colors, and flavors, all of which equate to job security for oncologists the world over. The night of stumbling through neighborhood haunted mazes where spring-loaded fictional serial killers and motion-triggered phantoms shake, rattle, and roll with bargain-bin Spirit Halloween audio quality.
Well, if that’s the sanitized family-friendly Halloween you’re expecting this year, don’t knock on our door! The Halloween we’re serving up to our trick-or-treaters is going straight for the existential jugular. There will be no Hershey’s products. No Cadbury. No Mars. Trick or treat? Not on our watch. Tricks that treat—that’s what we’re dropping into the dirty pillow cases that grace our porch.
Here’s the inventory we’ll have on hand:
Tiny books with excerpts from Camus’ “The Myth of Sisyphus”. Let the soft, TikTok generation come to terms with their future—a lifetime of pushing bullshit uphill only to have it roll back over their dreams and—more than likely—the pet guinea pigs they never clean up after.
This is life without the joy of a traditional Halloween. Packets of flavorless steel-cut oats. Nothing conveys spiritual misery and gastronomic horror like a bowl of hot, soggy grains—modern (mal)nutrition on a budget.
All our unmatched socks. Every kid in a costume gets one—just one. A symbolic token that says, “Sure, you might have friends, family, even a spouse or two some day, but when the grim reaper drags you from this mortal coil, you’ll be alone. Oh, so alone. Yes, you, too, kindergartener. Not even your adorable bumblebee costume will save you!”
Empty Rx bottles labeled Hopes and Dreams. No dosage, no instructions, no refills. Just a quiet reminder of the long life ahead.
As for haunted mazes, we’ll be forgoing the typical linear approach wrought with jump scares and cotton-swab spider webs in favor of the following carte blanche experience of soul-slurping nihilism and philosophical despair:
Academic Limbo—a public school-themed, PTA-inspired cocktail party. Guests may enjoy one non-alcoholic juice box per family. Sharing straws will be strongly encouraged (READ: mandatory) due to a gross lack of funding. Trick-or-treaters will not only face relentless, spirit-corrupting small talk but will be subjected to painfully detailed chats with aspiring children’s authors who somehow keep circling back to their illustrated manuscript about a tortoise’s journey through standardized testing.
The Ladder to Nowhere—don’t let the name fool you. Climb long enough and you’ll definitely find yourself somewhere—a dimly lit room littered with dead bodies. It conjures images of Hieronymus Bosch paintings, except the corpses are all dressed for casual Friday and clinging to Styrofoam cups of lukewarm vending machine cappuccinos.
Potluck Perdition, where all dishes must be sampled, and all dishes are provided by people who have Canadian citizenship or Kazakhstani heritage. The overarching flavor profile can only be described by the word gray—in color, taste, and quality.
The energy of Potluck Perdition is the opposite of this.
The Whirlpool Waiting Room—hard, cold metal chairs, either so big that your feet dangle or so small that you can scratch your knees with your throat. The only sounds are the voice of a DMV veteran saying, “We acknowledge your patience… We don’t appreciate it, but we acknowledge it.” There’s only one exit, but it leads right back to the waiting room.
The Corporate Corridor—a disorienting labyrinth with fluorescent lights overhead, polyester carpeting underfoot, and motivational poster-inspired wallpaper that offers passersby these proverbs from The Book of Kool-Aid Hangovers: “Think Outside the Box, but Stay Inside the System.” And “Great Ideas are Meant to be Shared… Preferably with Your Manager So That He Can Take Credit.”
The Damnation Device Lab—entering this room automatically triggers a security lockdown, and the only way to escape is to engage a sea of computers, laptops, phones, and tablets, all of which require 27-factor authentication. Every time you’re emailed a password reset, the email begins with “I hope this finds you well…” before the device crashes.
The Robot at the Crossroads—a candlelit room where trick-or-treaters sit across from a Tesla-inspired robot and are invited to ask questions about the meaning and purpose of their lives. The robot only responds Socratically with vague and vapid suggestions in the form of questions:
“Have you tried manifesting your goals?”
“Are you familiar with the benefits of positive self-talk?”
“What would happen if you expressed that anger in a healthy way?”
After several exchanges, the robot glitches and its messages become existentially passive-aggressive before becoming aggressive-aggressive:
“Purpose not found”
“Happiness… buffering…”
“You’re on your own, shitbird.”
Like everything in this culture, Halloween has become too weak, too saccharine, too sterilized. Razor-sharp claws, ax-wielding psychopaths, bloodthirsty clowns have nothing on monotony and meaninglessness.
Welcome to my All Hallows’ Eve, you spooky shitbirds! And don’t bother looking for the exit. There ain’t one. And always remember, your father loves you.
Postscript: After hearing about the plan for this year, my kids have already decided they’ll be dressing up and trick-or-treating for Halloween 2025. Huzzah!
And if you haven’t picked up my dark crime comedy novella Dig…
I love how you guys are the kids - you make a nice Pugsley. I enjoy watching the families who dress up together. This year I got a nice pic of the cast of Wizard of Oz. The little girl was adorable as Dorothy. When I was a kid, my parents never went with us -- but that was before selling children on the dark web was a thing.
I don't know about the West coast, but this year in my NYC borough--which I'll lovingly refer to as "The Gateway to Hell" to protect its anonymity--all the man-boys in a five block radius came out in costume and it was concerning.
I had a 5'10" 250lb Winnie the Pooh who was lamenting to his companions about lectures and other academia issues. If you're "auditing" a class... you're too old. Then there were two terrifying guys, both 6'2" and dressed as The Insane Clown Posse's nightmare. They truly were scary. One carried a baseball bat and the other a sledgehammer -- I'm pretty sure they were planning some big-boy B&E later. So I said what any small female would, "Hey little boys, want some candy". I figure I'd get on their good side. Hopefully if they get caught their Dum Dum lollipops aren't traced back to me.