Why I Don't Really Like Halloween

To be completely honest, I don't really know why I don't like halloween. For some reason once I turned fourteen, and I started getting pimples on my face as well as my face, I guess I just figured that I was getting too old. Then I came too college and apparently, no, I was the only one who thought this. Once I turned 15, I was giving out candy too kids, answering the door without pants, with my knee high black socks telling the teenagers to stay off my lawn. Then I would return back to my hovel and watch some more Halloween specials on Turner Classic Movies. Yes, by the age of 16, I was a 45 year old bitter man towards halloween. But it dawns on me that I didn't have many good halloween experiences either. I know I said I wouldn't get personal, but this is a commentary on halloween and i feel like I should back up my position on why I think Halloween kind of sucks.

When I was four, I was walking home with my mom after a night out trick or treating at various Echo park establishments and homes. Me and my mom were walking to the door, when I man in a hockey mask with a huge knife jumped out and screamed, "ahhhh I'm gonna kill you!!!" I started crying and screaming at the top of my lungs, my mom did the same. That man turned out to be my idiot dad that traumitized me for the rest of my life and who basically ensured a lifetime full of paranoia and always looking over my shoulder. Thanks dad. He still does this to teenagers and little kids. Except now he has a hacksaw and is yelling something inaudible.

When I was in third grade, my parents had not gotten me a halloween costume and it was the night of Halloween. They kept telling me they would and it just never happened. The truth was, my family was struggling financially at the time and could not afford to get me a costume. I spent the beginning of the night at school in day care, waiting for my dad to come. When he picked me up, I asked him about my costume. I remember the sad look on his face and the difficulty he had trying to explain to me that this year we couldn't buy a costume. We went home and my dad grabbed an old t-shirt I had, these toy football pads, a toy helmet and that same hockey mask he used to traumitize me, and slapped a crappy costume together for me to go trick or treating. He rationalized it by saying I would be "The Galloping Ghost" (the nickname of a football player from the 30's and 40's). No one understood the costume and I was ridiculed the entire night.

So as you can see, I don't have a good relationship with Halloween. I try but I really just can't get into it. The fact that people dress up to be something that they're not to me, is just living taking to another extreme. Besides, most the time the costumes suck anyways. Who wants to see every other girl dressed up as a sexy referee?

-C