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| Rob's Soapbox | ||
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October 26th, 2009 HAPPY HALLOWEEN I really dislike Halloween. Oh sure, as an 8 year old kid in a Bugs Bunny suit it was fun enough to go around my neighborhood and fill my bag with candy, but I never even really loved it then. I have no traumatic recounting of personal Halloween horrors, like being thrown into a coffin or stripped of my costume in the middle of the town square or anything else equally scarring to a child; I just never embraced Halloween. From there, it’s grown into a full blown hate. As time passes, Halloween’s hold over me becomes more and more vile and wretched. I truly loathe the day. And it is the day I loathe. Leading up to it is fine; the decorations don’t bother me, some even make me laugh. The planning and expense is fine; I just view it as warm-up prep for the upcoming holiday parties that actually matter to me. It is the day of Halloween, October 31st, that I cannot stand. I love Christmas and hate Halloween; why is that, I wonder? On both holidays there are decorations and specific foods and parties related to the day and presents as well….kinda…on Halloween your presents come from going to neighbors and on Christmas they come from family and close friends while in the comfort of your own home. Halloween is so bad for the children. We send so many horrible messages to kids on Halloween night; many of which may leave permanent scars and alter their lives forever. - It begins with the costume. Right away we tell Children that if they want to achieve their goal that night, they have to pretend to be someone else. That’s real goosing of the self-esteem right there. And not just anyone else, remember…you have to be someone else who has enough fame to be recognizable. So, to recap; if you want to succeed you must pretend to be someone else who is either famous or fake or scary or all three. You simply do not possess the skills to achieve your stated goals tonight on your own. You are not good enough nor are you worthy. Now go shower and put on your Deputy Dog mask and costume. - After all of the pomp, circumstance and picture taking we send the children out into the cold, cruel world where they commit the walk of shame. They must trundle their fake selves from door to door, trespassing on other peoples’ property all the way, so that they can then ring for the master of the house to grant them the honor of a visit. And if, by some miracle, the owner of the home does open his giant door what will we tell the children to do? Will they offer the man praise for his beautiful home? Will they engage in a battle of wits a la trivial pursuit? Will they pray for world peace with the man? No, none of these things. Instead our children, our future, our hope, will trespass, dressed as someone else, so that they can roust a man out of the comfort of his own home solely to then…beg. They will beg the man for whatever sugary treat he may have. - And what if the man has no sugary treats? Do we then teach our children compassion? Do we perhaps point out to them that it was rude in the first place to interrupt the man solely to beg for HIS belongings? No…we do neither. Instead the children have been instructed to threaten the man with the consequences of a trick. On its’ face a trick seems not only harmless but perhaps fun; what kind of a trick? Card trick? Dancing bunny? A dog that juggles? Those would all be great tricks. No, not on Halloween. They’re thinking more along the lines of vandalism and arson. The types of tricks convicts play. Or mobsters. Or any other group in our society that shakes people down. Good lesson for the children. - Once the children feel the rush of having stolen candy from an innocent tax payer the unstoppable forces of greed and anarchy take over. All across the neighborhood, the city, the state and the country we encourage and allow our children to commit home invasion after home invasion as they pillage their way to a night of pounds and pounds of candy; none of which they bought, and none of which they will declare as income. The list of crimes we encourage and allow our children to break on Halloween is unmentionable in its scope and breadth. From impersonating an officer to making terroristic threats to tax evasion we strip away our kids’ hopes at becoming law abiding citizens in one sick night of twisted role play. And why do we do it? For it is we, the adults, that have burdened our children with this made-up holiday; the kids are not to be blamed. What pre-pubescent rat is going to turn down free candy, even if the price of the candy is his soul and dignity? They aren’t old enough to understand the true price they are paying; they trust us to make those decisions for them and on this one night every year we turn our backs on them and allow them to dance with the devil himself. Why is that? There is a place clearly deep in the hallowed cavernous ruins of what used to be our souls that we migrate to emotionally each October. It is the place that our secrets hide, our regrets live on and our darkest hours haunt us still. It’s what keeps us awake at night. It’s what interrupts a joyous moment with a dose of reality. It is the unmentionable part of what makes us whole people and we hate every bit of it. So on Halloween each year we turn into emotional vampires; in need of innocence and joy and playfulness and a life filled with no worries. But, as vampires, the only way we can obtain such treasures is to suck them from the innocent; our own children. And so we dig our regretful, vengeful, hateful fangs into the necks of our offspring and poison them with our mistakes and personal failings so that they can then give us one night of joy, based on misdemeanor crimes. Halloween has nothing to do with the children, it has to do with our incessant need to feel that we matter again. To feel we are good. Even if it’s phony, we just want to feel it and the only way we can is to sacrifice any chance our children have of ever growing up normal, happy, well adjusted and without pretense. We don’t care though. It is almost as if the very reason we gave birth to our children is so that we could destroy them as human beings in the most vile way possible; Halloween is the day for such murder. Happy Halloween!
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