October Is Evil

It's October ... my least favorite month of the year.

Sure, I try to stay focused on the good stuff, my mom's birthday, the fall colors, Subway's ANY-tober, but the evil that is October is always loitering in the back of my mind, just waiting for the last day of the month to pounce on me.

That's right ... I'm talking about H-A-L-L-O-W-E-E-N.

I hate every bit of it - the skeletons, the ghosts, the down right freakish costumes that everyone feels compelled to wear. I can't even go to the bank without being subjected to a creepy zombie peering at me from the drive-up window. What? You thought I actually might go inside the bank??

*shudders*

I don't like people hiding behind masks. I cannot tell who they are and I cannot see their facial expressions (also the reason I am phone-phobic). Faces help me know how to respond to situations appropriately. That mask? Leaves me just staring at your face unable to hear a word you are saying and not knowing how to respond to anything you do.

And the decorations? I'm good with happy pumpkins and even a black cat or two, but those things people put up that look like real people? The dummies wearing real-ish clothes and standing out in ghoulish, front yard displays???

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No ... just no! There is something terribly wrong with this ... this ... deception. 

Don't even talk to me about going to a haunted house or ... or ... Terror on the Railroad. Why would anyone want to ruin a perfectly good train ride by turning it into a scary thing??? And at my favorite railway museum even??

I was traumatized with this insane October ritual early in life. Growing up, all of my friends looked forward to that one night a year where they could dress up, knock on doors, and come home with a pillowcase full of candy. 

Me? I was terrified. First, I had to put on some sort of costume that was scratchy and uncomfortable, pulling in places it shouldn't pull, poking me in places it shouldn't poke. Then I had to walk around in the dark (for you young'uns, Halloween used to only be celebrated on October 31st and you never left to go trick-or-treating until after the dinner hour), knocking on strangers' doors, while those same strangers dressed up as witches, ghouls and ghosts, would purposefully attempted to scare small children by jumping out at them from behind their front doors.

Really?

That is supposed to be fun??

About as fun as hammering a rusty nail through my left nipple!

It hasn't gotten any better as I've gotten older. I tried to take Cam trick-or-treating when he was young. Fortunately he felt the same way about this asinine holiday as I do. I hate to admit it, but I was more than a bit relieved the first time I took him out on Halloween, and he refused to go to the neighbors house, having a complete meltdown at the bottom of their driveway.

We went back to our townhouse, turned off all of the lights, and went to bed. And that's exactly how we spent every Halloween for the next 5 years.

Now? I still can't hand out Halloween candy. All of those ... those ... miniature people, knocking on my door, peering at me through with their unknown faces.

STRANGER DANGER!! STRANGER DANGER!!

I don't care if they are only 3'-6" tall ... I DON'T KNOW THEM!

Maybe it's just the break from routine (I know what my bank teller is supposed to look like, and how she dresses on Halloween is not it) that unsettles every fiber of my being. 

Or maybe it's the fear of being startled, then subsequently laughed at and embarrassed (embarrassment is, by far, the worst feeling ever).

Or maybe it's knowing that when people wear costumes and masks, my inability to read faces and socials queues escalates, insuring that what I think they are saying/doing will be so erroneously off-the-mark my responses to them won't make any sense at all (that happens more than any of you know).

I hate October.