3 Reasons to Hate Halloween

Happy Reformation Day! Or Halloween! Or whatever crazy thing you happen to be doing. As Matt and I were saying to each other, even with tears in our eyes, Halloween is the absolute pits.

Here are three reasons to hate Halloween.
One
Oh my word, who even has time? I don’t know about you, but I don’t have extra hours and days built into my life. I used to be a procrastinator, as in, I would put things off because I was anxious about failure and in some perverse sense believed that if I sabotaged my own efforts by not even trying it would not be my fault when everything went sideways. I mean, I’m pretty sure that’s why I was a devotee of delaying every single academic effort until the very last minute. I’m not entirely sure about the psychological roots of procrastination, but it’s a theory that makes sense. All I know is that I was really good at it.

But then somewhere along the way I snapped out of that insanity. Now I like to do things epically early. I like to be ten minutes early for any meeting and I like to have every project done weeks and weeks before it’s due. I arise with the lark and work hard and methodically. But that has only allowed me to fill every speck of my day with organized productivity. Which precludes me from both effectively cleaning my house and pivoting flexibly and cheerfully towards those eventualities that are not properly scheduled.

Cue the stupidness of Halloween costumes. How am I supposed to help six different people who are supposed to be concentrating on Biology, math, Cicero, Latin or whatever, and who, whether they procrastinate or not, don’t really have time to think about what they’re going to do for three hours on a Wednesday night when there is usually choir practice? Should we be talking about trying to conjure up a Bobbie Whickam or a Ring Wraith or a Cereal Killer (get it…) when there are five things due this very morning?

Two
Oh my word, why can’t my children just decide to be something normal? I suppose this is the inevitable result of them growing up and not caring enough to plan ahead, but caring enough to be jerks about it on the day. Little boys just want to be superheros and little girls just want to be princesses—or whatever, seriously—but big kids want to be battle ax PG Wodehouse females and something called “Caleb the Confused.”
“What is Caleb the Confused?” I asked, trembling.
“It’s a person I made up who can’t decide which historical period to be in.”
“You can just be an elf,” said Matt, saving the day, “here are your ears.”

Three
Oh my word why does this have to happen when it is cold and raining? It’s going to rain all day today. And so that’s going to be the worst. Somehow we’ve managed to avoid the weeklong Halloween that seems to be plaguing the rest of the country—when someone suggested we move our Trunk and Treat to earlier in the week I became glassy eyed and unresponsive—so that means we’re at the mercy of the weather. And that means that this year, as every year, is going to be the worst.

So there you are, your annual invitation to hate Halloween. If you have little kids it’s awful because everyone is crying and you’re probably crying. And if you have little kids and big kids it’s awful because half of them are crying and half of them are being obnoxious. And if you don’t even have kids its awful because little kids and teenagers come bashing at your door, disturbing your quiet evening. And if you have to go to a Trunk and Treat it’s the worst because you have to leave your house and go outside and it’s either too hot or too cold and you’re missing all those hours you could be reading a book, or better yet, the internet.

On the other hand…I guess there will be candy. So maybe scratch everything I just said.