“I ain’t afraid of no ghost!” –Ray Parker Jr., “Ghostbusters”

Fun fact about me, I’ve never really celebrated Halloween. When I was a kid, my (hella religious, very Christian) mom called it “the Devil’s holiday” and wouldn’t let me do anything related to it. No watching scary movies or anything. Although I did see The Exorcist once as a teen and that was the only horror movie I needed to see. I’ve also seen Candyman (didn’t like it) and Carrie (liked it), but in general I tend to stay away from horror movies anyway, even now that I’m an adult. Horror-adjacent stuff is okay, though (looking at you, Us, Get Out, etc.).

Anyway, my mom and aunt didn’t really get along, even when they were kids. My aunt was very controlling and hated that my mom wouldn’t just do what she told her to do simply because she was older than my mom. This beef followed them into adulthood, to the point where even now, they haven’t spoken to each other in over 30 years. (The origin story of said beef is a very long story. I may talk about it in a future post.) However, when my cousin and I were kids, they wanted us kids to get along, even though they didn’t. So they’d always have us do stuff together.

One year for Halloween, my aunt got the idea that I should tag along with her, my uncle, and my cousin when they go trick-or-treating. My mom agreed, except she forgot the most important part. I didn’t have a costume. So my mom said I should go as a ghost. “We’ll just take a white sheet and cut some holes in it for the eyes,” she said. Seems easy enough, right? Well, the problem is that because my head was so big, the sheet formed a point at the top and…well, you see where I’m going with this. I basically looked like Clayton Bigsby from that one Chappelle’s Show skit. That night, when we walked house to house, I didn’t get hardly any candy from anyone, other than some pity candy from the few people that felt sorry for me. That was the one and only time I’ve ever been trick-or-treating.

Now that I’m an adult, I just treat Halloween like a normal day. Luckily, I live in a neighborhood where we all keep to ourselves, so no one around here goes all out either. Although I do usually treat myself to a giant bag of Halloween candy on November 1st, since that’s usually when all Halloween candy goes on sale. Seems pretty fitting.

Thanks for reading and happy Halloween.

Song of the Day: Michael Jackson – Thriller

Still one of the best music videos of all time and one of the best albums of all time.