HOW TO AVOID HALLOWEEN
Everyone has those holidays that just absolutely make them cringe.
Among the most common are Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and, though not technically a holiday, birthdays, usually due in part to the ever present reminder that you are older, crankier, and just generally increasingly less fun with each passing year of your disappointing life. Halloween, however, is usually a pretty light-hearted and fun-across-the-board celebration. But for hyper-Type A personalities with almost crippling anxiety, the high-stakes expectation of fun a night like Halloween imposes can cause many to just crash and burn right outta the gate.
Left with the daunting and losery task of staying in on yet another holiday can get to even the most dedicated misanthrope. But worry not! Staying in does not have to look like glaring at happy strangers from behind the curtains of your darkened living room. You can do that any night of the week. This is Halloween! If your idea of socializing begins and ends at resentfully creeping on everyone else’s good time via social media as you eat an entire Entenmann’s cake alone in your room, then do it with flair! Get creative, get comfortable, and most importantly, make sure you have secured a strong internet connection. Instead of going out, you can:
Dress up your dog. Dressing up your dog is also not something that has to wait for Halloween in order to happen, and any dog owner worth their salt already has an array of costumes, wigs, and tiny hats intended for just such a purpose. Photo-heavy media sites like Instagram and Tumblr were made for things like ‘dog dressed as Bret Michaels,’ so don’t be afraid to be heavy-handed on this one. This is your time to shine, and your dog’s time to reimburse you for all that food/shelter/medical expenses/waking up at 6:30am you’ve been selflessly offering them throughout the duration of your relationship.
Eat a TON of candy. Halloween is synonymous with candy, and stores all over the country are packed with the good stuff. This is the time of year when you can actually load your shopping cart with sugary confections and not reach your car to find an informational pamphlet explaining the risks associated with type 2 diabetes pinned beneath your windshield wiper. Everyone will assume you will be giving all that candy away, and you know what? Let ’em. What goes on within the confines of these four walls is between me, myself, and my type 2 diabetes, thankyouverymuch.
Don’t let all those cartons of eggs and rolls of toilet paper go to waste. So you bought a ton of eggs and toilet paper, thinking you were actually going to vandalize someone’s property before realizing you are 1.) not an eight year-old boy, and 2.) going to have to leave the quiet and comfortable confines of your knockoff memory foam mattress in order to properly partake in any sort of trickery. Fret not! There are SO many things you can do with a ton of eggs and toilet paper. You can make a DIY egg white and toilet paper blackhead removal mask! You can paper mache some dogs and dress them up if your live dogs have become aggressive towards you due to your constant prodding! You can bread a ton of eggplant using the egg wash, then just have a bunch of toilet paper to use in the bathroom, because even though that stuff does grow on trees, it’s still actually pretty expensive. The possibilities are... three.
Tap into the dark power of Time Warner Cable to cast a spell on thine enemies. I am not entirely sure where the tradition of Halloween got its start, but if I had to guess I would say it probably reaches as far back as 1989, when Time Warner Cable sacrificed the still-beating hearts of one hundred adorable, birth-defective kittens with those pathetic little wheelchair wheels instead of hind legs, in exchange for the irreverence and terrible customer service needed to begin their quest for world domination. Halloween is a wonderful time to tap into the masochistic lack of soul that will surely bring your enemies to their knees amidst any conversation. Using phrases like “I can see how that would be frustrating,” and “I already asked my supervisor,” you too can learn the dark art of continuing to address someone’s concerns for 45 minutes without resolving anything, leading them to eventually give up in frustration, then channeling and redirecting their rage toward their unsuspecting boyfriends in the form of an imaginary fight.
Practice making kind faces in the mirror. Eventually it will be time for you to reenter the cruel and unusual outside world, and people from every facet of your life will be expecting you to do things like listen to them talk, or even take turns saying words based on the topic at hand. It really is asking a lot. Luckily for you, you have the entire night to practice making faces to wear during said encounter, seamlessly leading others to believe you might actually give a shit about whatever boring-ass nonsense they insist on talking to you about. Be it sexual harassment policies at the workplace, or the dinner specials this evening, practice using any number of combinations of moves, including head tilts (left, right, or the often overlooked, askance,) eyebrow raises, nods (“yes” or “no”,) steepling of fingers under the chin, meeting of the thumb and index finger under the chin, or nervous scratching of the chin (to use in the instance of a lie).
Whatever you end up doing this Halloween, have fun, be safe, and appreciate the fact that this is one holiday that does not require you to fulfill any familial obligations! Unless you have a kid.
