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Day Four Daily Blogoramadingdongday


Today's suggested blog writing prompt has something to do with my favorite Halloween costume from my childhood. Other writers have done this and done it better than I ever could. That said, let's jump into the fray.

I was a kid such a long ago that I don't remember much about it.  Because I was a kid who couldn't really sit still for long, all of the daguerreotypes of me in my Halloween costumes are too blurry to make out. This is just as well considering that I was raised in an era before there was any sensitivity shown to anyone and racial and ethnic stereotypes were considered appropriate Halloween attire. I confess that on October 31st I still have this strange urge to black out my front teeth with my mother's eyebrow pencil. Periodontal disease is part of any good Halloween costume. Am I right? 

Anyway, enough about costumes, let's talk about something more cheery, shall we?

I remember carving pumpkins with my family. Those are happy memories. Actually, carving pumpkins was never as fun as I thought it would be. There was a lot parental sighing, I couldn't get over the feeling that the adults had 100 things they'd rather be doing, and since I had no fine motor skills and was not trusted to cut a pumpkin with a steak knife, I pretty much just sat at the table and pouted while a stressed out adult cut out a happy face on my pumpkin and berated me for not being grateful.

I was a weirdly sensitive kid and anything with a face no matter how inanimate became my new best friend. I'm suddenly remembering in great detail the groundbreaking psychological studies done by some dude named Dr. Harlow in the 50s with a baby monkey and a wire dummy monkey mom who gave food and a soft dummy monkey mom who gave nothing but wasn't cold and hard. I was that baby monkey.



Anyway. I'm trying to make this HAPPY damn it. I'll keep going. I remember falling in love with my happy jack o lantern. I'll always remember her lopsided face, her peg-toothed grin, the special way her eyes lit up when I told her my secrets or placed lit matches in her cranial cavity. And I remember the pain of having my new best and perhaps only friend, Jackie Lantern, smashed to a pulp in the road by a gang of neighborhood shitheads  naughty children.

I have mixed feelings about Halloween.


Comments

Pink Lady said…
See, now I, on the other hand, LOVE Halloween! I like dressing up like a complete idiot (last year I was Snookie. Another memorable year I was Princess Leah. Not recommended. All guys have a latent Princess Leah fantasy.) Try it this year...dress up like a complete fool and have fun.
October 7, 2013 at 9:19 PM
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