Wednesday, October 29, 2008

You know, I really don't like Halloween, and not just because it stands between me and Thanksgiving. I am always in favor of getting dressed up in silly costumes--I will be an awesome giraffe--but I hate being scared. And Halloween seems to give everyone an excuse to hide around corners or send emails that scream or tell stories about things that hide in dark places, and I am so not down with that.

Some of this is probably related to that time when, trick or treating, a man in a mask scared me so badly that I fell down into the space between his trailer and his steps, which hurt quite a lot. And when I am thoroughly startled I tend to cry, which is embarrassing. But I have always hated being scared. I remember as a kid catching part of Jaws when I was supposed to be sleeping and having one of the worst nightmares of my life, all about my family getting eaten by sharks or killed by assassins on the run from sharks, if they managed to escape the sharks. I don't watch horror movies, and it makes me so mad when the trailers for them come up at other movies, because why spring that on an unsuspecting public? Not cool.

When I was dating my college boyfriend, I perfected a trick of looking carefully only at one corner of the movie screen at scary movies, so it looked like I was watching when I was in fact bracing myself so I wouldn't shriek and hit the deck when something noisy happened. The suspenseful ones are the worst, because I hate it when things jump out unexpectedly more than I hate it when people touch my ears, even. I've never understood why anyone would think it's so much fun to be scared. (I have the same confusion in relation to spicy food. It hurts! How is that fun?)

All of which is just to say that while I am super excited about pumpkin carving tonight, I can't wait for Halloween to be over. Time for Thanksgiving, already.

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