The day I learned that I have good reason to not like Halloween.

The day I learned that I have good reason to not like Halloween was on Monday, which happened to be Halloween. I was pondering why I had such a distaste for all things Halloweeny, why I was not interested in doing anything with friends or going to a costume party, and why I scoff at Halloween decorations and other spooky things. And I realized that it’s because I’ve had a lot of really sucky Halloweens.

The last good Halloween I can think of was when I was in preschool and I dressed up as a firetruck. 

That was a good Halloween. 

After that, it all goes downhill. Like my fifth grade year when I wanted to dress up as a mime but none of my classmates knew what a mime was. I spent the whole day explaining my white face and striped shirt, only to be met with questioning glances. And to top it off, when I went trick-or-treating, I lost a tooth in a Milk Dud. I had to go from door to door holding a wet washcloth in my mouth, which messed up my face paint. 

Or there was that time I went to my first Halloween party dressed as an overweight tourist, complete with a sunblocked nose and gray hair. That was the same year I started to admit to people that I was a good singer (I’m a musician. Did you know that?), and the party host made me go up in front of all the attendees with a microphone and sing a song a cappella. So I quickly stripped out of my costume, got rid of my makeup, and sang. All the people in my grade responded with the loudest and most intoxicating applause I had ever heard. However, the hot girl I thought I would impress did not, to my chagrin, fall in love with me despite my lack of muscles and tan, but instead became jealous and ignored me the rest of the night. I went home bummed. 

Then there was the high school dance I attended in an inflatable clown costume, and I had a great time until I got diarrhea and had to go home.

Or maybe my junior year in high school, when my friends came to my house trick-or-treating and told me to join them. 

ME: No. Don’t you think we’re too old for this?

THEM: Of course not! It’s fun!


ME: But I don’t even have a costume...

THEM: That’s okay! You’ll blend in. Just stand behind us and stick your hand out. The people giving candy won’t even notice. 

ME: This seems like the least foolproof plan in the history of plans.

THEM: WE DON’T GIVE A CRAP ABOUT HISTORY, BRIAN.

ME: I don’t think you’re listening. 

THEM: Just come with us. What do you have to lose? 

ME: Time, warmth, dignity...

THEM: We don’t care. 

ME: Okay, fine. Let me get my top hat so I’m at least somewhat costumed. 

So I donned a top hat and we went trick-or-treating. The first house we went to, the person handing out candy looked at me...

And then I went home. 

Then, in college Christie and I went to a Halloween party where everyone drank except for us, and we had to watch a man feeling up a woman dressed as a lion, and an extremely intoxicated and slightly slutty bumblebee knock everything over. 

I'm not even going to draw this one. Just picture a bumble bee with a drunk woman's head on it. 

Last Halloween. A bunch of friends and I thought we, nerdy non-partying folk as we are, should head to my hometown (La Crosse, Wisconsin...more bars per capita than any other U.S. City) and test out the bar scene. We ended up in the lofted area of a bar downtown, gazing down at the giant costumed humpfest happening below us. These were the characters: 

• Popular-looking men wearing sports jerseys (not really a costume)
• Popular-looking women dressed as a slutty version of something (be it an American Indian, a she-devil, or some sort of fairy/princess/angel thing)
• Funny guys wearing something funny or clever and movement-restricting which they discovered a second too late that it would never get them laid
• Funny ladies who wore something funny or clever and movement-restricting that would probably get them laid anyway
• One guy standing by the dartboard sans costume who had no one in particular to hang out with so he just stood there bobbing his head and singing along with every song that came on. 

My friends and I treated the whole ordeal as a sociology study on the mating rituals of our generation. My favorite part was when I witnessed a drunk and slutty Tinkerbell grinding next to a puffy and broad-shouldered man in a baseball jersey, who proceeded to shove one hand in her armpit and lodge the other in her crotch and lift her up in the air. He then put her down without explanation, and a few minutes later did it again. What made it even better was that Tinkerbell seemed too intoxicated to process what was happening to actually react to it...

And that’s why I just don’t like Halloween. You can enjoy it if you want. Me, I’ll just buy candy for myself and watch Ghost Adventures on the Travel Channel. And write a blog post.