House of Horrors... Now With More Garbage Bags.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I love Halloween. 

For as far back as I can remember, it’s been my favourite holiday. As a kid, I would spend hours sitting on the front porch, shredding black garbage bags like a motherfucker (think: Steve Vai, but with scissors…and garbage bags…), constructing scary ‘graveyards’ in the front garden and barricading the doorbell so people would be forced to use the door knocker- thus setting off the Ghost of Horror. The GOH was essentially a small plastic cone, covered in white material with a face drawn on it. When activated, it would shake and make a ‘ghost’ noise for about 30 seconds. More often than not, it was unresponsive to loud noises. Noise detectors in the 90’s were clearly not up to snuff.

My mom really digs holiday wreaths.

Every Halloween, the front of our house looked more like it was vandalized than decorated.

Despite all of my hard work, my makeshift decorations were usually always shitty, and most definitely not weather resistant.  And as many of you likely know, sometimes it snows on/around Halloween in our Nation’s capital. This meant that we were forced to bundle up when we went Trick or Treating. Nothing says “frightening” like a zombie in a Mountain Equipment Co-op Jacket and snow pants. “HIDE IN THE CLOSET, HONEY! THE ZOMBIES ARE COMING AND IT LOOKS LIKE THEY ARE ABOUT TO DO SOME SERIOUS TOBOGGANING!”

(Wow that paragraph was abundantly Canadian.)

The presence of snow pretty much guaranteed my garden ‘graveyard’ would always be ruined. Turns out cardboard cut-outs with “RIP” written in Sharpie aren’t as ‘authentic’ as one might think. (It’s important to note that the ‘tombstones’ were also about 6 inches tall and a foot or so apart, resembling more of a sad pet cemetery than a spooky graveyard. And given the high number of these pet-sized tombstones, one could have deduced that the child living in the house was likely a budding sociopath/serial killer.)

My parents always played the “It looks great, kiddo! You really did a stand-up job this year! How spooky!” card.

Deep down, I always knew they were just being polite.

But every year, without fail, out came that Halloween box, the garbage bags, the scissors, a role of masking tape and a kid determined to make it the ‘scariest year yet!’

I’d hate to tell you, kid, but you failed. That ‘evil, pumpkin-head scarecrow’? Not scary. That time you dressed up in your friend’s dad’s Hungarian monk robe and hid behind the tree? Not scary.  That time you turned all of the house lights off, except the glow of the jack-o’-lanterns on the porch and made your own ‘scary sounds’ tape and played it through the dining room window? Definitely. Not. Scary.

There is, however, one thing I’ve managed to master after all of these years: my pumpkin carving skills.  I can work my way around a pumpkin like George Foreman can a grill.

I guess you could say pumpkins are my bitch.  

Masterpiece by Janet and Britt. Delicious.

This year, with an abundance of Halloween plans in the working, I can hardly wait to get my hands on one of those orange fuckers and get my stab on.

Prepare to be gutted, my friends.

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Do you have any good pumpkin carving ideas or conquests to share? If you come up with a good idea, maybe I’ll use it. And maybe I’ll credit you.