Halloween Hardships

Halloween has never been my favorite holiday. It’s not that I have any moral objections to demanding candy from people; that would be a bit overly principled, even for Baptists. No, I think it stems from my timid demeanor as a child.

I was always a shy kid around people I didn’t know. Thus, the idea of walking around and asking complete strangers to give me sugar seemed completely ludicrous. I made my parents come with me (not just with, up to the door) until I was 13 years old.

The goal of most kids was to look as scary as possible. Not me. I tried to dress as cute as possible, that way my neighbors would just say, “Awww,” and give me the candy without me having to utter a word. Other kids started at dogs and progressed to Scream masks. I went from Mickey Mouse to an M&M in eight moves.

I mean, it’s only three words: Trick or Treat. I could say other phrases only three words long no problem: “I am hungry,” “Hippos are fat,” “Gym is stupid,” “That’s my pipe.” I suppose it's kind of ironic then that I ended up a writer. I couldn’t even beg for food the one day people are dying (wham! Halloween pun) to give it away. How am I supposed to do it as part of my living?

But that’s the past. Here in college the object is not to look scary and get candy. It’s to look like a slut and get laid. Nurses, witches, cats, police: all with cleavage and most certainly wearing stockings. If not one of the top four, your costume is designed around what would look absolutely ridiculous when you’re completely trashed at the end of the night. Let’s just say there was definitely a Winnie the Pooh stumbling its way around the World Series riots last year in Kenmore Square.

Yet old habits die hard and I’m still going with the cute angle today. For the party tonight, I’m dressed as someone protesting how Mother Nature decided to skip fall and go straight to winter this year. So yes, that means I don’t have a costume. However, it also means I’m always cute. Result!

I arrived twenty minutes late, like usual. Someone buzzed me in and I climbed the stairs to apartment 3. The door was open and I walked right in. The apartment was dark but I could not see any sign of a party.

“Hello?” I asked.
“Salutations,” a voice responded, a voice I’d heard somewhere before.
“Is this the No Dressing Up party?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Where is everyone?”
“This is everyone.”
“Are you trying to be difficult?”
“Sorry. Wait, why am I apologizing? I’m the killer.”

And then I remembered where I’d heard that voice before. It was Jigsaw from the movie Saw.

“What do you want from me?” I pleaded.
“To kill you, of course.”
“But I haven’t done anything. Don’t you normally kill people who are leading their lives wrongly? What’s your name, anyhow?”
“Todd.”
“Well, Todd, I think you’ve made a mistake. I’m an angel.”
“I was too. But then I went to a doctor who was also a veterinarian. He got confused between animals and humans one day. I was spayed.”
“That’s awful!”
“I got off lucky. He put my brother down.”
“I’m sorry, but what do I have to do with this?”
“You are a Pre-Med student.”
“Were. I dropped it within a month of starting freshman year.”
“Oh. Bugger.”

By this time I had found a light switch and discovered the door and windows to be locked. There was a Mr. Potato Head doll lying on a couch with a knife through it’s, er, skull, I guess you would call it.

“I’m such a failure. Now they’ll never let me star in the Saw spin-off, Chisel.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t feel too bad about it, Todd. The Horror genre is so creatively bankrupt anyway. Showing your emotional side is sure to garner you some buzz.”
“I hope you’re right. I’ve always dreamed of being a respectable dramatic actor like Val Kilmer.”

Silence ensued. I felt the minutes tick by as I waited for my mystery host to release me.

“So what do we do now?” I questioned after awhile.
“I don’t know, have a party I suppose.”
“Will there be balloons?”
“Oh yes, there will be balloons.”
“Great.”
“You want some Candy Corn?”

At the mention of this, Candy Corn shot out of the walls and pelted my non-costumed frame.

“Ow, fuck, man. That hurts.”
“Sorry.”
“Besides, nobody actually eats Candy Corn. It’s an element, like Phosphorus or Titanium. There was a certain amount of it here on Earth when time began and people just keeps offering it to everyone else. It never gets eaten, just passed around.”
“I see. Sorry I ruined your holiday.”
“Don’t worry about it. I always wanted to be tops at the box office.”

Soap Wars: The Phantom Playoff

It’s been a few days. Reality is starting to set in and I can see things have changed. These next few weeks will be different. How frighteningly different they would be I could never have imagined

It’s mid October and the Red Sox are not playing the Yankees in the American League Championship Series. Worse than that, neither team is playing at all. They’ve both gone home, destined to “wait ‘til next year.”

At first, I thought maybe neither team advancing was a good thing. I’m rather busy with schoolwork right now so the added distraction of a playoff race was not helping my grades. Now if only America’s Next Top Model would go off the air.

In addition to that, people’s feelings got hurt last year. When the Yankees were up 3-0, their fans were rubbing it in the Sox fans’ faces. Then the Sox fans returned the favor after each of the next eight games. I told myself that Boston University and the northeast corridor of the United States in general will be a much happier and less confrontational place than it had been the past two Octobers.

But things haven’t been that peachy, nor have they been peary, orangey, or appley either. No fruit-related adjective could describe the situation. Grapefruity might be the closest you can get because it’s sour, but I am quite partial to grapefruit thus ruining the necessary negative connotation.

Everyone here has this pent up aggression needing to be released. They’ve stockpiled all this vindictive energy for precisely this time of year, but now there is nowhere for it to go. Instead of yelling at televisions and denying our opponents service at respectable institutions like Jamba Juice, the fans are arguing vehemently over petty differences. This scene erupted on my floor just the other day:

“Hey, guys, look at this kid. He’s gonna shower using Irish Spring soap. That’s so lame.”
“Irish Spring has been the classiest soap since it was introduced in 1972. It’s much better than your worthless Lever 2000.”
“Irish Spring hasn’t won the National Soap Award since 2000.”
“But it has won more National Soap Awards than any other bar.”
“Yeah, well, when you’re owned by the Evil Empire, Colgate, you can afford to buy off those judges.”
“There you go with that Evil Empire crap again. Just because we’re good businessmen and are part of a mega conglomerate that will rake in more profits, our soap is somehow tainted. The next thing you’re going to tell me is that No Doubt’s best CD was Return of Saturn.”
“It was a big step forward for them.”
“Everybody knows that Tragic Kingdom was, is, and forever will be the best thing No Doubt have ever done.”

And on and on it went until a full-scale gang war ensued. It had it all: choreography, snapping, a Puerto Rican named Bernardo, everything. I tried to play it cool, but it was just too hard.

Now commissioner Selig, I know you are reading your copy of The Daily Free Press while digesting your morning dose of Fruity Pebbles and Ensure, and I implore you to do something.

The Northeast cannot survive the winter without some sort of playoff between these two teams. Why don’t we have a losers’ bracket? There’s no clear third or fourth in the American League now. The White Sox are first and the Angels are second, but how do we know who is third and who is fourth? The Red Sox and Yankees can’t tie for anything. Even when they both had the exact same regular season record, the Yanks were given the AL East title.

It may seem insignificant now, but this crisis will escalate. Folgers versus Maxwell House, Sesame Street versus Fraggle Rock, Reuben versus Clay, shirts versus skins (ok maybe that one wouldn’t be all bad): life as we know it will crumble in the face of unending competition.

And why is it that competition is so important to us? Why do we raise our children to embrace these rivalries and hold prejudices against people who cheer differently? I am afraid to bring a life into this world if he’ll be persecuted for the Triceratops being his favorite dinosaur or she’ll be ridiculed for not wanting to say Hello to Kitty. Things need to change before I produce someone that will perpetuate this system.

So, please, hear my plea, Bud. The well-being of millions of people relies on what you choose to do in this hour of dire need, especially me because I happen to prefer Zest.

*Published in The Daily Free Press on Friday, October 21st, 2005*

The Dropping of the Eaves

I’m sitting at dinner, eating what the dining hall has labeled “Sweet & Sour Chicken” and which I would use an entirely different S-word to describe. The hall is crowded; I’m alone and that can only mean one thing: eavesdropping.

Call it childish. Call it inconsiderate. Call it what you will. It’s entertaining. Eating alone can be incredibly pressuring. There may be people there you know but not well enough to invite yourself to eat with. So then you have to deal with those people you slightly know seeing you eat by yourself.

Suppose there are people there you could sit with but you don’t see them and sit alone. Then they think you chose not to sit with them on purpose. This gets blown way out of proportion, with boycotts and demonstrations, so that before you know it, you’ve lost a friend on thefacebook.

And for those of you out there who think eavesdropping is an invasion of privacy, you’re right, it is. It absolutely is. But if you’re going to talk openly – not to mention loudly – in public about your crush on turquoise warthogs, I deserve to have that extra information when you make a pass at me during a party in the distant future.

So I’m at dinner, facing the wall, enjoying the solitude, when someone else’s conversation starts to drift in.

“I’m so sick. I sound like a 13 year-old boy.”

Now, I apologize if this was you. I just overheard it. It’s not like I can put it back. There’s no undo on hearing. It’s like giving a bum your sandal, realizing that was a bad move, and then trying to take it back. It can’t be done.

I’m not going to turn around and stare right at this person after they said they sound like a 13 year-old boy. I play it cool and wait for the appropriate moment to sneak a glance at this gender-bending diner.

I’ve gotten rather good at this. You nonchalantly drop your napkin and take a peek. Or even better, pretend you’re looking for someone who’s supposed to join you. Once I even pretended to crack my back. There’s a million ways to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong. My knowledge of at least forty doesn’t seem so bad in the great scheme of things now, does it?

The best part about eavesdropping is not picking up interesting gossip and information to blackmail people with. That actually gets old after about the 4^th person you blackmail and the authorities start getting involved, forcing you to spend a few months down in Nicaragua with the geckos while avoiding Interpol agents with Nerf guns.

No, the best part is that you can make up histories and faces from these characters and the snippets of their life you’ve picked up. I’ve given this girl jet black hair, glasses, and a music collection centered around the shoegaze movement of the late 80’s and early 90’s. She wears clothing that’s not too revealing, but flattering nonetheless. Her father is a stock broker and her mother runs the arts and crafts camp for the local park district back home in Maine. This cold came on suddenly, almost as if someone wanted her to lose her voice so that she couldn’t audition for the part of Belle in an up-and-coming production of Beauty and the Beast. Foul play is afoot. I’ll figure out who sabotaged your stage career, Audrey, if it’s the last thing I do.

But my chance never came with the sex-changing, age-defying cold sufferer. Before I knew it, that gravely voice had disappeared, and when I turned to look, the table was empty. My vocally challenged friend was gone. Never will I know whose face spoke with that voice of a 13 year-old boy named Gene. Such is life in the eavesdropping movement sweeping dining halls all over New England. Wait, what’s this I hear?

“Apple Cinnamon Cheerios should be put on a pedestal and worshipped.”

Really? That’s interesting, Sadie….

Mr. Talkedy Returns

I woke up with a cold today. Maybe this could have been avoided if I had been taking my daily multivitamin instead of whipping them at cars that drove past my window on Bay State Road. But we all get lonely sometimes.

Then I lost my voice.

Losing one’s voice is like being transformed into a tapir. You can no longer speak to people, they gape at you like you’re in a zoo, and for some reason your nose grows longer and you’re using it to eat. Seriously, you know it’s true.

I always took speech for granted. Not once did I realize how vital it was until I lost it and was completely cut off from the world. When I did try to speak, my voice sounded like a cross between a respirator and a Nickelback CD. Needless to say, it took some strong persuasion to start breathing again.

Since I was unable to do much else, I began to reflect back on other times I was without language. Of course as an infant I couldn’t talk. But, then again, I couldn’t control my bowels either so I wasn’t really winning ribbons anywhere.

The most memorable time I lost my voice was in the 4^th grade. It was the first day of our creative writing unit. I don’t really remember what I wrote, probably some stupid mystery/thriller about coral reefs. The Catholic Church was probably involved somehow, trying to cover up that Jesus went wakeboarding there with Mary Magdalene. Even at such a young age, American writers were trying to be Dan Brown.

My friend Bryan was much more aware of his surroundings. He used my voiceless condition to inspire his story. In it, there was a man named Mr. Bogedy who would steal people’s voice boxes in order to talk nonsense with their voices. The main character, Bobby, had a voice box named Mr. Talkedy that was stolen, fought back, defeated Mr. Bogedy, and freed all the abducted organs of speech.

I wanted to go out and see if anybody would write any stories about me this time. But first I needed to buy some Bic pens. After hitting up the bookstore, I headed down to the Commons to people listen.

“I love Dashboard Confessional!”
“…so I said to him, ‘You can’t suggest that I have some ice cream. That’s saying I’m fat, which is harassment.’ And he said…”
“Yo, dude, you want to make some S’mores? Shit, G, I could really go for one right now. Will the man let us build a fire right here?”
“I love you more than words can express. You are my one and only forever more. Will you go to Prom with me?”
“Yo quiero comer tus gatos.”
“Isn’t this skirt just perfect? I was going to donate the last $100 daddy gave me to Hurricane Katrina relief but then I saw this little baby for only 80 dollars and couldn’t let an opportunity like this pass. I mean, hurricanes happen every year…”

I couldn’t take it any longer. All these people were blessed with the power of speech, a blessing I had been temporarily deprived of, and they were wasting it, wasting the gift. Any one of them could have used the vernacular in a remarkable way, to say something truly insightful and laced with beauty, but all that came out was nonsense. Mr. Bogedy had returned and multiplied.

This overwhelmed me and I started running away as fast as I could. I wanted to be back in my room where I could hide my mute body under a blanket and shut out this ranting world of irrelevance.

But when I got back to my dorm I met with a new obstacle. Boston University with its ever evolving quest to make life difficult had upgraded its cock blocking dorm security once again. Now voice recognition was required for entry into its residences. I walked away without trying.

Spending a night outside was not going to damper my spirits any further. I walked over to the highway underpass to stake out my claim. It was still light out but I didn’t care. The sooner I fell asleep, the sooner this would all be put on pause. I drifted off in no time.

I awoke in the arms of my new friend Greasy Jeremiah and thought, “What time is it?” But I didn’t just think it; I spoke it. Mr. Talkedy had returned. With whoops of elation regarding my reintroduction to audible life, I galloped back to my dorm and triumphantly shouted my name into the security speaker.

I felt so unbelievably happy while I flew up the stairs to my room. Right then and there, I made myself a promise that along with Mr. Talkedy I would rid the world of Mr. Bogedys by always speaking and writing with passion and eloquence. Now if thou wouldst excuse me, I find myself in dire need of some multivitamins.

*published in The Daily Free Press on Friday, October 7th, 2005*