Isn't Real Life Scary Enough?

Hallowe’en costumes these days are a lot scarier than they used to be. I remember princess outfits my mother bought at the drug store. The dress and tiara were made of paper and would end up in tatters by the time I got home after trick or treating. I was a cowgirl for several years, a gypsy once and finally on my last year out, I went as a beatnik.   

Somewhere between two and three hundred kids will collect candy at our house on October 31^st. Some of the younger ones will dress as princesses, paupers, pirates and kings. They won’t be too terrifying. In fact, they’ll be doggoned cute. We’ll ask them, “What are you dressed as?” and they’ll say sweet things, like, “I’m a witch!”  “Ooo! Scary!” we’ll say, and toss an extra mini chocolate bar into their little pumpkin bucket and call out, “Bye! Thanks for coming!” as they dance away into the nighttime with their parents cueing them to shout back, “Thank yoooooou!”

The older kids do their best to be totally gross. The walking dead, monsters, mad scientists, Miley Cyrus.  We might say, “Yeah, really frightening,” and acknowledge their creativity, because we know they’ll have assembled their costumes with the particular glee teens get out of shocking adults. They’re not as scary as they like to think they are.

But, this year, with all the absolutely horrible things going on in the world, I’m sure you’ll agree that we don’t need to see anybody in an Ebola HazMat suit. Way too soon.

Some things are way worse than the undead showing up at your front door. You want truly gruesome? You don’t have to look further than real life. Makes your hair stand on end. Here is my list of the “Top Five Costumes I Don’t Want to See This Hallowe’en”:

 

1. Telephone Solicitor. Endlessly repeating, “Hello, ma’am. How are you today? This isn’t a sales call, but….” Talk about the zombie apocalypse! For the love of humanity, can no one make them stop?!?
    
2. Monica Lewinsky. She’s BAAAAAA-CK! And she has a book to promote. She’s been seen on TV sweetly saying things like, “I was just an intern!” Seriously, do we have to hear the whole sordid tale, AGAIN???? AAAAAAAAGGGHH!!!!
    
3. Ernest Ansley. You thought he had vanished! But he’s in the news again! Ernest is the televangelist “faith healer” with the ridiculous helmet-like hair-weave who smacked the sick and suffering who came to him on their foreheads and commanded those foul demons to “Come OUT!”  Folks dropped their crutches and rose up out of their wheelchairs and walked again. Viewers at home participated by placing their hands on the TV screen. If they sent in money and really believed in Jeeee-sus, he’d shout, “HEAL!” and their afflictions would disappear. Scary enough, right? But it was revealed in the news this week that for years he advised his male followers that they should get vasectomies thus ensuring that the money they’d spend on their potential offspring would instead go to Ansley’s church. And if THAT wasn’t chilling enough, Ernest apparently liked to play doctor and make his parishioners drop more than their crutches so he could personally check that surgery had actually taken place. How creepy is that?
    
4. Kim Jung Un. Dude. Too scary. Go away! Or maybe he already has?!?
    
5. Stink Bug. It’s only a matter of time until these rotten stink-bomb insects invade your neighborhood. They are taking over the world. An invasive species from Asia, they are proliferating at a rapid rate in North America and they are on a mission to move into a State or Province near you any day now. They hide in your curtains and lurk on your window screens. If you try to crush them, they will emit such a stink you will never forget. No animal or bird will prey upon them. They are here to stay. And, believe you me, they will make your spine crawl every time you see one. They are that ugly.

I don’t know about you, but I got the frights just writing this ghoulish list! What’s your worst nightmare? Happy Hallowe’en!