Originally posted
10-4-12.
PICK ONE:
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Ghosts or Goblins?:
I’ve always liked ghosts. Not sure where it started, but I have memories of watching Space Ghost, and I think the little ghosts in Pacman are super cute. I’ve seen nearly every single episode of Ghost Hunters and have the original t-shirt.
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Zombies or Vampires?:
Scott’s all into zombies, I think they’re dumb. I know, I know, half of you out there hate me now, zombies are *the thing*, I know. And believe it or not, I haven’t seen a single Twilight movie. I like old timey vampire spoofs, and I’ve been impatiently waiting for this one to hit pay per view. I saw the preview on a Dish ad this morning, so I’m very excited.
And this one.
Witches or Hags?:
Let’s just skip to the really cool ELVIRA. I love her. Click pic to get to her facebook.
Werewolves or Frankenstein?:
Sometimes it only takes one time to create an undying classic. I love me some Rocky Horror.
Black Cats or Bats?:
BOTH. This goes way back to grade school. The compulsion to buy black and orange construction paper, little scissors, and glue is pretty overwhelming this time of year. I have the cookie cutters, definitely. And we had black cats growing up, with names like Midnight and Cosmic Creepers, and we keep bat houses around the yard.
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Trick or Treat?:
Big ol’ combo on this one, when the kids were young we used to save up all kinds of stuff to put into the candy bowl- barbie doll shoes we couldn’t find mates for, broken crayons, mardi gras necklaces, hotel soaps, old Christmas candy, leftover party favors from birthdays, ketchup packets, play money, you name it, we grabbed it and mixed it in. We were the hottest candy house on the street for a few years. Really miss that.
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Candy Corn or Candy Apples?:
Popcorn balls!!!!! I make them by the gallons. I have a really awesome recipe. And lately we’re getting into Halloween themed cupcakes. Last year I tried to make mummies and they turned out looking like the Taliban, and my sister made cute little hatchets with toothpicks and foil and stuck them in the cupcakes to make them ‘bleed’.
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HALLOWEEN QUESTIONS:
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Do you like to dress up for Halloween?:
The easiest and coolest thing I’ve ever done is lightly stroke mascara down the tiny fuzz on my face to create 3D whiskers. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told that I screwed up because my eyebrows were too neat.
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What were you last year for Halloween?:
A pastry chef for someone else’s party, mainly. The kids on this street grew up and moved away long ago. We got two little kids and that was it. I was glad I didn’t dress up, although I wore my Ghost Hunters t-shirt all over town.
What are you going to be this year?:
No plans at all on that yet. Scott did this one year. Yeah, it really did scare some little kids. He looks kinda psychotic.
Favorite costume you have ever worn?:
My fave story EVER is from over where I used to live a long time ago, people get pretty crazy when they live too far outa town. One guy took his front door off and replaced it with a cheap fake door with a knob, and when a bunch of little kids knocked on the door (they travel in big groups when the houses are few and far between), he fired up a chainsaw inside the house and sawed right down the middle of that door. That’s right, they ALL ran screaming. Really wish I could have seen that.
How do you spend your Halloween?:
Is this not the ~coolest~ Halloween video you’ve ever seen?
Are you or are you not going trick or treating this year?:
I once made my kid go out on a blustery cold wet night with a billowing cape, drove her around the neighborhood with a pillowcase in the pickup to unload into, hit every door that was lit for nearly two hours, and she made out like a bandit because no one else was showing up in that weather, several people dumped their whole bowl into her little bucket. We actually filled the pillow case, and one old guy even gave her money. She wound up with a raging case of strep, but we had free candy for months.
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Did or do you pull Halloween pranks?:
One year she dressed up as a medic with scrubs and gloves and mask (I was in nursing school that year), and I let her use my stethoscope, and she came home with a wicked latex reaction on her hands that lasted for weeks. You guys be really careful with those costumes.
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Do you believe in ghosts?:
They get out of my way. Yes, I have awesome true ghost stories. No, I’m not going to tell them right now.
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Do you decorate your home for Halloween?:
We did that for years, and then a couple years ago we gathered it all up and gave it away and junked the rest because the kids moved out a couple years before that, and then last year someone wanted to borrow it all… I’m not in the habit of keeping stuff around in the event someone might want to use it sometime in their life, but that was one time I wish I had. I think Halloween parties are the funnest to go to.
Have you ever been to a haunted house?:
I spent the night with a friend in a house that someone had been murdered in years before, and I was the only one who stayed up late watching tv because I didn’t get to do that at home. I didn’t believe the stuff they were telling me was real. BIG mistake. I wound up being all by myself at the other end of the house when it started, and there is absolutely nothing creepier than to hear a horrible murder by a psycho replayed and not see anything moving around or being disturbed. I raced down the hallway and dove into my friend’s bed and curled up like a freaked out cat into her stomach, and she barely even woke up to push me over. I shook for a long time, trying to hunch up and hide behind her (like a sleeping person could really save someone), and never went back. I have never been that scared since then, even though I’ve seen more scary ghost stuff.
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Have you ever been to a graveyard on Halloween?:
Weird stuff happens in graveyards at noon in full sunlight, but people generally don’t notice. Hey, weird stuff happens around my house *all* the time. I need to write a book about this house. We often snicker at the reaction the next family in this house will have after we either move or die, because this house is so creepy weird our youngest daughter refuses to spend the night alone here. She did that ~one time~ and called us up sobbing.
Have you ever been to an amusement park’s Halloween event?:
I listen to other people’s stories about how they freaked out in haunted houses and corn mazes and whatever and just laugh. The best stuff is little kid parties with trying to bite apples hanging from strings while your hands are behind your back, or beanbag bat into the pumpkin tosses, and stuff like that. Watching little kids do Halloween is pretty cool. My sisters dressed their kids in the coolest homemade costumes every year. This is Pebbles from the Flintstones.
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Do you watch scary movies on Halloween?:
I have watched the Ghost Hunters Halloween all-nighter every year since they started that. Last year I think I finally hit burnout, it was too interactive and interrupted because it has turned into such a big media event, it’s just not the same any more.
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Have you ever had your candy stolen from you?:
If you’re stealing *anything* from me, you’ve prolly been set up for a prank, and I made it easy for you. Around these parts, people glue razor blades around the edges of stuff.
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Did you ever steal any ones candy?:
I was always the one slyly stealing everyone else’s tootsie rolls.
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Has anyone ever gotten hurt due to your prank?:
Someone tried to prank me after they egged a cop car and then insisted it wasn’t them but that it was me (we had identical pickups), but I stayed cool and asked the cops if they noticed whether the pickup egging them had Missouri tags, and they said yes, and I pointed out that mine were out of state at the time (whew!), similar color and style, and boy were they mad, I think the other guy prolly got arrested. They had no clue I was the one who had been stealing signs… I heard later there was a crash, but no one got hurt. I know, I felt bad, I didn’t steal any more signs after that. Or guard rails. Or other stuff…
HAVE YOU SEEN:
You know what, I’m just going to wipe out that whole list and make my own. I mean, after decades of Twilight Zones and every conceivable rip off and remake possible, I really don’t get off on scary movies, and that list was so outdated and boring. Besides, I grew up butchering, and I worked in a hospital cleaning rooms people had died in, I know most people don’t really know what old blood and bodies really smell like or what real death really looks like, so it’s hard to convey how unimpressed I am with it in movies. But I will tell you a few things that disturb me and stuck with me far longer than ‘scary’ movies…
-Does anything truly compare to the weeping angels on Dr. Who? Seriously, that made me so nervous the first time I saw them that I had to pause the show and leave the room and calm down, and I started noticing statues around town for awhile. And the living faces in the library creeped me out way more than the black shadows eating people down to skeletons.
-I have avoided Arachnophobia like the plague ever since I saw a trailer on tv. My nightmares about spiders are actually way, way worse, and one day I hope to write my own thriller about spiders that’ll make all the other creepy movies look like the teacup ride at Disneyland. If you are able to watch Arachnophobia, you do NOT have arachnophobia. Mine is pretty severe. I once ran off a cloverleaf and wrecked my little pickup over a spider dangling in front of my face, perfectly timed to a John Denver cassette singing “Come and let me look in your eyes…” I can’t bear spider jewelry or decor of any kind. Ironically, I live in the woods, and I’ve seen some amazingly gigantic spiders with leg spans as wide as your face. My daughter once shot a tarantula with a bow and arrow inside the house, which I thought was pretty cool.
-The doll that looked like George Costanza’s mom on Seinfeld gave me the creeps so bad that I couldn’t look at dolls for a whole month after I saw that. I’ve had a problem with dolls most of my life, eyes looking at me out of fake faces unnerved me pretty badly as a child. Someone made a facebook for her.
The Doll That Looks Like George Costanza’s Mother
-Remember that Guido Jesus meme? That was one freaky dude. And I know I'm weird, but I got the creeps from Ridiculously Photogenic Guy, too. I think my imagination is too active, but that was kinda Twilight Zone-y for me.
-Scott made me watch The Ghost And Mr. Chicken after we got married. There isn’t much that is more disturbing in a marriage than your spouse getting excited over Don Knotts in a creepy romantic movie. Actually, more disturbing than that is the way it seared itself into my brain, I’ll never be able to forget it.
-Jim Varney, period, especially as Dr. Otto.
One more thing, since you made it this far. I know this is a creepy thing to bring up (which makes it ideal for a Halloween survey!), but if you feel torn between a delight in the macabre and a sense of being worth something after you’re gone, consider how fun it would be to donate your body to science! That cuts funeral costs right out, and you can have a few giggles thinking about the students in various fields who will get to practice on you as a cadaver while on their way to becoming professionals in medical, crime, and other fields. I know a couple of people who have done this, and I think it is an incredibly brave and selfless thing to do. If this sounds like an interesting choice to look into, here are some good reads.
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