Random Acts of Nerdness: Halloween XXIV

Ha, ha! Yeah right! Of course I went out trick-or-treating. And for those not familiar with my general attitude about Halloween, yes, I’m twenty-four years old, I work at a state college, and I have a conceivable plan for marriage and home ownership. I also went trick-or-treating.

My feeling is if I’m willing to go through the formalities of coming up with a costume, dressing up, and walking a few linear miles for a couple of hours to gather an estimated $3.42 worth of candy, I deserve that candy just as much as those little brats who have their parents buy whatever licensed character costume set for $32.99 that consists of a cardboard mask and sheet of low-grade cloth, then have their parents drive them to densely-packed subdivisions to get candy, only to have them complain after stopping at four houses that they’re too tired or too cold, because their costumes couldn’t keep them warm inside an operating furnace. Not that I have a strong opinion on these matters.

For the last three Halloweens, I’ve either had something keep me from making my rounds or went with other people who couldn’t keep up with my candy-grubbing fervor. I managed to get out to do a little actual trick-or-treating last year, even though I started out late. This year, I had nothing to keep me from getting an early start, except for the fact that I wanted to add a little more to my costume plans (which didn’t get me anywhere). So after delaying myself for half an hour, I got home, threw on my ill-contrived costume in a fury, and prepared to step out into the neighborhood, ready to scare any passers by to pants-wetting levels with my ungodly and horrifying costume:

Oops! Not that one! This is the one I wore:

Ready to kick some ass and buy some anime!

Ha, ha! Aren’t I the mischievous little Halloween goblin, putting a picture of Big Uncle Fuku up without preparing anyone for it? Seriously, that second photo is not retouched (save for the background) and Big Uncle Fuku has made appearances at anime conventions, though he’s not really out of place there. As for the first photo, well, I’ll leave everything else unsaid. But seriously, I continued my Halloween tradition by dressing up as the world-famous murderous zombie, Jason Voorhees:

The children WILL spontaneously combust in fear over a sight like this.

If you’ve been following my progress with this project, you’ll know that my ultimate goal is to come up with a complete and convincing Jason costume. The last piece that I want to get is a pair of navy coveralls to complete the look, but I was unable to find any in time (at least for a price I was willing to pay for a costume I was going to wear maybe twice). Those tracking the evolution of the costume will note that this year, I’ve switched over to blue jeans instead of black, but that’s about it. Maybe next year…

Not that it really mattered, since I got some good reactions from the costume, especially the machete, which is real. For those of you who question the responsibility of an adult (I use this term loosely) who carries around a real machete when there are children out, dressed up as a serial killer at night, I have to point out that now that we’re not allowed to take drinks or toothpaste onto airplanes, something as obvious as a two-foot steel blade suddenly doesn’t seem as sinister. At least there’s no pretense there.

In case you’re wondering about the severed head bucket, my original intention was to use a plastic pumpkin bucket to collect candy, just like I did when I was younger. I thought that the cute accessory would be sort of ironic when carried by a machete-wielding madman. I decided to change it at the last minute to preserve the mood, so I stretched a mask over the pumpkin. Here’s what it would look like if I kept the original, unaltered pumpkin design:

Awwwww!

Not shown is a mesh auxiliary candy bag, just in case I needed something else to haul the bountiful goods.

I have to mention that the police were out that night, and I had some concerns that they wouldn’t agree with my artistic goal of scaring the hell out of people with a real blade. I passed by the police car without incident, though I thought I heard them chuckling as I went by. I guess they admired either my craftsmanship or my gall.

Not that I would be much of a threat if I did decide to kill people, since I was lacking peripheral vision. As you can guess, my costume considered of a mask (an original Freddy Krueger) with a Jason-style hockey mask over the top of that. What radial vision I had left after wearing one mask was pretty much stripped away by the other. Not that this was too bad, since drivers have come to expect dealing with Halloweeners blindly jutting in traffic, and I doubt anyone would attack me, since I was bigger than the average trick-or-treater and clearly armed.

The real danger was invisible uneven sidewalk slabs, which I slammed my toes into on a number of times at full swing. My boots couldn’t even cushion the impact, so I ended up breaking about 14 toes by the time the night was over. I started to wonder if more of Jason’s victims could have gotten away if, instead of running through the woods and letting the camera pan off of him, which allowed him to teleport wherever he felt like, they should have run though a neighborhood with a lot a uneven sidewalks. Jason would stub his toes so many times that he would eventually just give up and go back to Crystal Lake.

But I persevered, hobbling around my old trick-or-treating grounds, the Lyn Park subdivision, braving broken feet and drowning in the sea of sweat that was sealed in my mask in the name of Halloween tradition. I was hoping to be immersed in the hustle and bustle of trick-or-treaters, many of whom would require a change of costume after seeing my ghastly form. When I got to the subdivision, I found it almost completely empty.

This shocked me, because when I went trick-or-treating in 2004, there were a decent amount of people out. In 2003, there weren’t many because of a downpour beforehand, and in 2005, there weren’t many when I was out because I started late, but now I was out there right in the middle of trick-or-treating time, the weather was perfect, and the streets were deserted.

I really started to question what the hell was wrong with the world today. When kids aren’t out trick-or-treating on Halloween night, that’s a dead giveaway that the either the terrorists or the Republicans have won. As I trudged down the barren road, trying to figure out why everything seemed so wrong, I came up with some theories as I went:

Theory #1: The urban scare lore of contaminated candy had people too paranoid to risk their children getting a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup with Extra Glass Shards, even though something like this has, to my knowledge, never happened in Oregon before, and rarely happens anywhere else. Yet parents believe that every other piece of candy has an unexpected surprise inside that could require surgery or a coroner.

On that note, parents might believe that their children could get assaulted or kidnapped, though I have to say that I’ve traveled on foot and by bike after dark on many occasions, and I’ve never felt endangered. But I guess when you’re a parent, the world becomes 72% more sinister.

Theory #2: I’ve long suspected that they don’t make kids like they used to. The idea of walking around maybe a quarter of a mile might be too daunting of a task for the modern Spongebob Squarepants-raised child, so if they do decide to go to trick-or-treating, they have their parents drive them to subdivisions so they don’t have to walk themselves. Granted, some of these kids might live a couple of miles away from a subdivision, and you can’t argue with the fact that those places yield the highest candy per square mile, but I’m starting to wondering if kids have decided that they can just get all the candy they want if they whine to their parents about it. That may be a more labor efficient tactic, but so is sitting on your butt watching Oprah instead of exercising or getting a job.

A similar theory states that the laziness is the fault of the parents. Who can blame them?

Theory #3: The Christians have won. Despite what they claim, the Christians are a force to be reckoned with, now more than ever. They way I see it, decades ago, when almost everyone considered themselves a Christian and thought that they lived a Christian life (they didn’t, but that’s not the point), the Christian movement was pretty content with itself, because it believed that it controlled the country. They allowed things like Halloween because it was just some activity that might have stupid satanic pagan roots, and they were damn certain that no one was going to turn their back on the Faith in favor of Halloween.

Now, of course, other religions have gained notoriety, so the Christians suddenly feel threatened. It has since become an “us against them” battle, and the Christians have decided to use Halloween as a scapegoat for their lost prestige. The local newspaper mentions several churches protesting Halloween by holding (really) “Holyween” events in an attempt to get kids away from participating in the satanic ritual. They feature wholesome and spiritually enriching activities, like throwing balls at a cutout of the Devil. That’s really one of the activities.

Interestingly, I’ve read some Christian literature that claims that Halloween was a Christian holiday that was taken from them, so clearly the Christians don’t have any idea what they’re doing. That doesn’t stop them from meddling with Halloween, if not by luring kids into their “Holyweens” (which I doubt was the cause of the low trick-or-treater turnout), then by making parents and children feel guilty about being a part of an evil holiday.

Theory #4: Some might suggest that it was the location I was at that was the problem. I talked with one person near the subdivision (just because I was supposed to be a supernatural murderer doesn’t mean I had to be impolite) who claimed that she would only get about five people the entire night. That meant that Lyn Park was suddenly not the place to go trick-or-treating anymore. If this is the case, it is clear that the parents and children are defective.

I did run into several people, though, and a number of them reacted positively to my costume. I had been out no more than a minute when an older kid spotted me walking down the road and screamed “It’s Jason!” Shortly after that, a child apparently pointed me out, because an adult he was with explained that I wasn’t in costume, and that I came out of the woods. It was enough for me to stretch a mischievous grin on my real face, which was hindered by the rubbery grip of my mask face.

A few people thought the machete was a nice touch (that got me extra candy), though a few thought that it was a bit much (what do they know?). Overall, it seemed my costume was one of the higher-quality ones out there, but then again, I was competing with three-year-olds, a demographic who generally aren’t too particular about costume quality, especially if it involves Spiderman or Barbie. At least I made a lot of people visibly nervous.

It isn’t actually that big of an event, but I did run into someone dressed as Michael Myers. My first reaction was to challenge him to a fight and prove once and for all that that scrawny mental patient was no match for a massive machete-wielding zombie, but apparently the role was being played by a punk teenager who didn’t want anything to do with it. Feh, today’s youth…

I managed to clear almost three neighborhoods that night, raking in enough candy to fill two pumpkins. I proudly marched back to my house, feet aching, body tired, and enough sweat in my mask to support most sizes of marine life, but secure in the knowledge of a job well done. You can imagine how proud my mother was. I think she’s since changed her name.

In the end, it was a successful, fun night. It’s my goal to truly complete the costume by next year. By then, the sight of Jason Voorhees on Halloween night in Lyn Park will have been a five year tradition, so I’ve decided to make my secondary goal (because I’m just that kind of goal-driven person) to have the tradition become a local legend of sorts. So I’ll keep it up until I get some recognition (preferably not involving large quantities of law enforcement) or until I get bored with it. Hey, we can all make a difference.

And just in case you’re wondering, only one person asked if I was really a kid. I replied that I was a kid at heart. Isn’t that the truth…