Once again, Rental Doug was the first Sack resident to decorate his home for Halloween. But this time, his decorating efforts exceeded those of other Sack residents by a vast margin. In other words, he really put some effort into it.
His front lawn looked like a creepy cemetery. Fake headstones were placed haphazardly on the grass. A stuffed, headless man sat on a chair on the front porch. In the man's lap was a smiling human skull.
The porch steps were lined on both sides by pumpkins. At night, the entire scene was illuminated by an orange floodlight. And on Halloween night, a steady stream of frightened and tormented wailing blared from a set of speakers on the front porch.
Rental Doug's continued enthusiasm for Halloween has reinforced Oscar's theory about his alignment with Satan. He says Rental Doug's effort was "proof positive" of the man's evil lineage.
***
Doo went out for Halloween dressed as Spiderman.
Several months ago, he received a very realistic Spiderman outfit from his relatively new stepdad, Sticky. The suit is made from a foamy material similar to what's used in a diver's dry suit.
To say that Doo is fond of Spiderman would be an understatement. While the outfit was purchased only with Halloween in mind, it soon became evident that Doo regarded it as a regular part of his wardrobe. Over the last few months, one has seen far more of Spiderman in the Sack than a certain seven-year-old.
***
On Halloween night, no fewer than five trick-or-treaters in Spiderman garb visited the Wonders' door. Batman and Superman, according to Oscar, could only dream of such adulation.
Nevertheless, it was easy to pick out Doo in the crowd of webcrawlers. His suit was the only one with a gaping hole in the left knee.
Last month, Doo took a spill while riding his bike around the Sack. Clad in his Spiderman outfit, he had difficulty seeing the curb as he sped down the street. Within minutes, he received a close-up view of the pavement.
Computer Doug was standing on his driveway at the time and witnessed the mishap. Apparently, Doo hit the curb with his front wheel and sailed over the handlebars. He landed on the sidewalk in front of Gordon's house. According to Computer Doug, Doo seemed relatively unaffected by the spill, at first. Then he noticed the hole in his treasured Spiderman outfit. Within seconds, young Doo was wailing with humiliation and fury.
Computer Doug says Doo's outburst ranked somewhere between a Britney Bitterman meltdown and a Dora explosion.
***
Young Tremayne, the Sack's six-year-old chocolate bar vendor, presented himself on the Wonders' door on Halloween night dressed as a pirate.
His outfit included a single large hoop earring, a black do-rag and an eyepatch. A plastic sword was tucked into his waistband. With the exception of the eyepatch and sword, Tremayne's pirate outfit was strangely similar to his normal civilian "li'l gangsta" look.
***
Oddly, the Sack's cowboy kids did not appear on Halloween night dressed in their western garb. Instead, they were dressed in identical hobo outfits.
When asked about their cowboy costumes, one of the boys rolled his eyes and sniffed, "Those aren't for trick-or-treatin'."
***
The best costume among Sack kids belonged to Baby Doug. Daisy walked door-to-door with the infant Doug in her arms. The little tyke was dressed as a carrot.
Daisy said she found the outfit at a second-hand store. At first, she thought it might not be a good idea to dress the child as a vegetable. But she remembered seeing a kid in a cow costume and figured it would be okay.
Besides, she told me at the Wonders' door as she shifted Baby Doug the carrot in her arms, "What's so bad about a carrot?"
"Nothing," I replied. "Anyone would be hard-pressed to come up with a more outstanding vegetable than the carrot. I mean, really, who could top the carrot?"
"Exactly," Daisy answered. Then she said, "Well, celery is pretty good, too."
"That's true. You can't say anything bad about celery, either, " I replied.
"No," Daisy said. "But they didn't have any celery costumes at the second-hand store."
"Did they have any other baby costumes, besides the carrot?" I asked.
"Nope," she answered, "it was carrot or nothing."
***
The final word on Halloween belongs to Jeff Christ.
After listening to Oscar's ramblings about Rental Doug, Weed decided to seek Jeff's opinion on the subject of Halloween. His response moved Weed to claim it as "proof positive" of Jeff's lofty connections to God Almighty.
According to Weed, Jeff Christ said he was "not a big fan" of such festivities. He said his co-workers at Canadian Tire were being encouraged to dress up for their shifts on Halloween evening. Jeff, however, said he wanted nothing to do with it.
Halloween, he argued, was becoming far too commercial. It was driven by the marketplace and encouraged children to eat unhealthy food. As bad as this was, however, he didn't think it was anywhere as bad as the commercialization of Christmas.
"Don't even bother," he told Weed, "to get me going on that one."
***
3 comments:
For a brief moment I considered dressing up our baby as a girl just to put some of the pink hand-me-downs to good use. Sick, I know. He ended up as a kid wearing an orange onesie. Next year he can be Spiderman.
There were a couple of houses in my neighborhood that rivaled Blended Doug's house. At one of them, a woman dressed as a witch sat on the front porch with a microphone and blasted witchy sayings from a Marshall amp she had in the bushes. One of the little girls that was with our group wouldn't get close to her. It was funny in a kind of sad way.
Yeharr
One of the down sides of being a baby is the absence of a voice when it comes to Halloween costumes. On the positive side, I suppose, you get to sleep a lot and have people do everything for you.
The scary audio thing is certainly not for everyone. Very small children were terrified by the horrible wretchings that came from a few Sack houses. I don't think anyone intends for it to happen, but some kids are quite affected by the sound. . . .
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