There are a number of reason why I love Halloween more than Christmas. That pink bunny suit up there is one of them. Others involve open container laws and excessive cleavage. Head over to Paste Magazine to see the full list.
So I’m wrestling two ridiculous problems right now. I have my share of normal problems like deadlines and a conspicuous lack of funds in my bank account and a piss-poor mile PR and absolutely nothing to cook for dinner that my kids will eat, but the two problems that are currently demanding a lot of time and energy on my part are absolutely, utterly ridiculous.
Problem Number 1: There are zombies in the toilet.
At least, that’s what my daughter thinks. So she’s too scared to go to the bathroom alone. Instead, she forces me, or her mom or her brother, to come into the bathroom and watch her. “Because if you don’t come with me, the zombies will crawl out of the toilet and bite me.”
Obviously, this problem is a holdover from Halloween.
I’ve tried using adult logic (“but, zombies aren’t real”) and I’ve tried using kid logic (“but, I used the special zombie cleaner when I scrubbed your toilet this week”) but nothing works. So going to the bathroom is now a group activity. Awesome.
Problem Number 2: We’ve lost our Elf on the Shelf.
We moved. Apparently, our Elf didn’t move with us. At first glance, this seems like an easy problem to fix. Go buy a new Elf on the Shelf. The kids will never know the difference, right? That’s what I thought, too. The problem is, our original Elf on the Shelf was one of the Vaguely Ethnic Elves. He’s not black, but he’s not white. He could be Hispanic or maybe Middle Eastern or even Asian. I don’t know, I feel uncomfortable even trying to guess at the Elf’s ethnicity.
The point is, he’s definitely more tan than the standard Elf on the Shelf, which is great. We follow a strict “White Man’s Guilt” approach to race issues in our house, meaning we ignore race altogether. I’d like to say we originally purchased the Vaguely Ethnic Elf to teach our kids a lesson about race, but the fact is, I picked up the first Elf I saw in the store two years ago without realizing it was Vaguely Ethnic and then my wife and I debated for five minutes in the store about whether or not putting Vaguely Ethnic Elf back and getting White Elf would be racist. Then we felt racist and guilty just because we actually thought about putting the Vaguely Ethnic Elf back on the shelf…
So we have…nay…had a Vaguely Ethnic Elf on the Shelf, and we spent the last two years ignoring his race and all was right in the world. The problem is, I go to the store to replace this Elf and all I can find in the God damn store is White Elf. Boxes and boxes of White Elf. There’s a Girl Elf now, which is awesome, bully for women’s elf rights, but my kids are expecting a super tan elf to show up and judge their actions for the next 20 some odd days. Not a Girl Elf and not a White Elf.
Or maybe not? Maybe our kids never noticed their Elf was Vaguely Ethnic? Maybe our complete ignorance of race has worked and now our kids literally don’t see color? Or shit, maybe that means they’re even more racist because they can’t see the beauty and differences of different ethnicities. Jesus Christ. There should be a manual.
Meanwhile, I’m wandering around the store looking in every aisle for a Vaguely Ethnic Elf because I don’t want to ask the store clerk if they carry an Elf that’s, “you know, darker than this elf?”
Like I said, I’ve got plenty of problems right now, but the ones I’m mostly concerned with are utterly ridiculous.
In order to combat the multi-billion dollar slave-labor juggernaut that is the Halloween Candy Industry tonight, for Halloween, when trick-or-treaters come to our door, I’ll be handing out little plastic baggies of homemade kale chips. They’re delicious and nutritious and the only slave labor used in production was my own children, so you can feel good about eating them.
I’m kidding. But we live in an uber hippy town, so there’s a good chance my kids will come across a bag of kale chips during their one-night assault on dental hygiene. Maybe from the bus of gypsies that’s always parked around the corner. I hope it’s really a baggie of kale and not something else.
Our dentist is doing a candy buy back program. Bring in your piles of candy and they’ll give you…what exactly, I don’t know. Floss? It’s cute in a futile sort of way. I imagine this being about as successful as the government gun buy back programs. I might take in the shitty candy that nobody wants—I’m looking at you candy corn—but there’s no way I’m giving up my peanut butter cups. You’ll have to pry those from my dead, diabetic hands.
Fuck I love Halloween. I love wearing really inappropriately sexy costumes (I was a stunning Dorothy one year). I love trying to convince my wife that it would be in her best interest, nay, the best interest of mankind, if she wore a stripper Wonder Woman costume (or any saucy costume that has quick rip-away Velcro). I love that the kids get to wear their costumes to the grocery store or Home Depot for an entire week before Halloween without anyone thinking they’re weird. I love that for one night, I get to walk around my neighborhood toting a cooler full of beer and cops just smile at me. I love telling my kids bleak stories about the Halloween Scares of the ‘80s, when all apples hid razor blades and we trick-or-treated in the mall because our neighbors were psychopaths. But mostly, this Halloween, I love watching my son get dressed up as a ghost in a costume he made with his mother’s help, and try to walk through walls. It’s funny because he can’t walk through walls, even if he has a sheet over his head. But you gotta let kids learn these things for themselves.
Daddy Drinks 