Nov 012019
 

Per tradition, I used my floating holiday for Halloween (I always request it off at the beginning of the year, as though I’m actually racing anyone for that day) and I was prepared to just stew in my general creepiness, watch some horror flicks, maybe design some new cards. But then all kinds of annoying things happened right away, setting the tone, and then my day just stayed shitty and annoying to the point where I declared in front of witnesses (actual people, and not just the cats for once) that I was done celebrating Halloween. Let’s recap in bullets because I’m still too annoyed to even bother paragraphing.

  • For the first time EVER, I didn’t have any last-minute costumer alterations to perform on Chooch, which was a miracle. He created his costume all on his own, with a tiny bit of help from Henry (only when it came to measurements).  But then that night I was laying in bed and in true Erin fashion, I had a last minute idea that would add a bit of SNAZZ AND PIZZAZZ to the costume. “Don’t we have a spare doorknob somewhere?” I asked a slumbering Henry. “I know I’ve seen a spare doorknob…” and then I found it because our house might be a dumpster of chaos, but there’s a system to the madness. “Before you go to work, can you attach this doorknob to the left side of his costume?” and Henry mumbled and snorted, so I was like, “Cool, goodnight.” And he actually heard my commands because the next morning, we found the costume with the doorknob added to it, but IT WAS ON  THE RIGHT SIDE NOT THE LEFT and have you not learned a thing about me? I am a Halloween pageant mom. This sent me OVER THE EDGE to the point where I considered complementing Chooch’s costume by going as Jack Nicholson’s character from One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest. THIS WILL MAKE SENSE LATER. Anyway I blew up Henry’s phone with texts calling him a moron and worthless and Chooch was like, “This is fine though, no one will notice” and then he left for school before I had a chance to burn down the house with my psychic rage.
  • Then, at 8am I called my dentist’s office to see if I could swing by and grab the copy of the Xray that my old dentist was supposed to send to them BUT OH GUESS WHAT THEY DIDN’T HAVE IT. They were like, “Hmm it doesn’t seem like they sent it, can you call them and double check?” and like, NO but I guess I WILL because I HAVE TO. I called the old dentist and got their answering machine, so I waited an hour and called again and still got the answering machine so I assumed that they were closed and left them a borderline irate message about how it’s been two weeks and my new dentist doesn’t have the records they were supposed to send and I NEED IT FOR AN UPCOMING APPOINTMENT ON MONDAY GRRRR. Anyway, they called later that day while I was exercising and I don’t stop exercising for phone calls, sorry. So their rude ass receptionist left a smarmy message saying that they emailed the xray to my new dentist on OCT 15 and that I would have to call and check with them again so I called the new dentist and the receptionist even checked her spam folder but it wasn’t there!

    She was so nice and apologetic and I was like “Look, it’s not your fault those other people are making this is chore” so she verified their email address and told me to tell them to email it again which meant I had to have another shitty conversation with Lady Snark and she was like, “HOLD ON” and literally put me on hold before I had a chance to give her the email  address and when she came back, she said, “YES WE SENT THESE ON OCTOBER 15 TO THAT SAME ADDRESS BUT I GUESS I WILL DO IT AGAIN” and my god, I hate that place so much. By this time it was 4pm and I just didn’t care anymore. I had no ounce of fucks left in me to call my new dentist back to see if they got it.

    I just couldn’t. (UPDATE: Old dentist called me AT WORK this morning and said that when they resent the xray it was bounced back to them and it’s the correct email address so maybe they’re just idiots who are trying to send a too-big file!?!?!? Of course, the new dentist is closed today.)

  • The mail came. I was excited because a pin order I placed over the weekend was delivered! I bought a Regan/Exorcist pin and these cool Redrum shoelace charms which took me forever to put on my shoes and then I realized that I HAD ORDERED THE BLACK NICKEL VERSION AND THEY SENT ME THE NICKEL NICKEL VERSION!!!!!

  • Also in the mail was a 15-page court document because my grandma’s estate is being sued and of course my name, along with my brothers’ name, are all over that shit, so I had heart palpitations and the Pukes after that.
  • Then, Janna texted me and said she was in the area and wanted to stop by and get the cookie dough etc that she purchased from Chooch’s dumb school fundraiser. Henry asked Haley if she would keep it in her freezer because we didn’t have room in ours, so Chooch went over to get it. When he came back, he said, “Oh and heads up, Blake didn’t know this was Janna’s and ate a piece of the cheesecake but don’t worry because he put some cookies in there to make up for it” and this would have been another Seinfeld-esque episode in our lives where, hahahaha, something dumb happened to Janna, EXCEPT THAT THE CHEESECAKE WAS FOR JANNA’S FRIEND SO I FUCKING LOST MY SHIT because how goddamn embarrassing! JANNA’S NAME WAS WRITTEN ON ALL OF THE BOXES SO I AM LOST AS TO WHY BLAKE THOUGHT IT WAS OK TO HELP HIMSELF. Then Janna arrived in the middle of WWIII, just dropped right on into our Den of Domestic Hostility from a helicopter rope, right as I was declaring that I was DONE CELEBRATING HALLOWEEN.

Honestly! The last several Halloweens have been so dumb! I QUIT! I stan Arbor Day now!

The one constant positive of the day is that the Halloween franchise was playing on TV all day throughout all of my stressful dentist phone tags, bad mail, and verbal evisceration of Blake. I did also make some new cards for non compos, so it wasn’t a total wasted day.

****

Meanwhile, the weather was shitty and rainy all day, which was apropos since Chooch was once again going to be swathed in cardboard, but I tried not to fixate on that too much. I was just really happy that at least I didn’t have to do any last minute bullshit with his costume. I just threw some gray eyeshadow on his face to give him the appearance of facial hair, armed him with an emergency poncho, and then let him go off with his pals.

Apparently, one of their teachers told them they’re too old to trick-or-treat and that made me mad. I feel like if a school-aged (including high school) kid wants to put on a costume and have some fun that doesn’t involve drugs and vandalism, then I will gladly give them candy if they come to my house. MAYBE EVEN TWO PIECES. Kids don’t get to be kids for as long as we did, so let them have this night for god’s sake.

Chooch has a really strong grasp on “crazed.”

Honestly, this was the only great thing of the whole day, seeing Chooch bask in the fact that he made his own costume. And you guys, the rain held off!

But back at the Murder House, I had decided that I was still in too bad of a mood to deal with kids, even though I did run to CVS earlier to buy my midnight hour collection of picked over candy. We live on a main drag in our neighborhood so even in good weather, we only get about 20 kids. It’s depressing, really.

So I employed Trudy’s help in passing out candy:

Anyway, I called it – 4 trick-or-treaters. And they were all one family, so literally just the one opportunity for Trudy to shine. And she succeeded in making the little girl in the group cry. I was hiding behind the door, because that was the whole point – slowly open the door from the inside and let them take their own candy from Trudy’s basket. So I had to fling the door all the way open and yell, “WAS IT TOO SCARY?! I’M SO SORRY!” while Henry was in the background mouthing off his catchphrase: “Good one, Erin.”

The parents swore that it was OK and the dad was fucking loving it. He actually was telling me ways to make it even scarier. “You should put a hand in the basket so it grabs people” and then he was trying to see everything else in my house (I mean, to his credit, there is a lot to take in) but I was like, “OK bye now.”

And then Henry and I sat in the dark, with horror movie scores blasting from a Bluetooth speaker, for two hours. Waiting, and waiting, and waiting. BUT NO ONE ELSE CAME. I kept peeking through the curtains, pacing up and down the sidewalk, flicking the porch light off and on to draw attention, but our block was mostly deserted all night.

A few kids appeared here and there, but they would only go as far as the halfway house up the street, then turn around and go back.

Does my house have a reputation?! REALLY, KIDS WILL GO TO THE HALFWAY HOUSE BUT NOT 3021?!

Two older-teenaged girls, not in costume, walked by at one point and I tried to get Henry to call them over.

“Yeah, a 55-year-old man, yelling ‘Come here!’ to underaged girls. That’s a good way to get the cops here,” Henry said around a frown.

“Well…maybe the cops want candy,” I started to suggest, but then I quickly laughed that idea off because HAHAHAHA I HATE COPS AND WOULD NEVER GIVE THEM CANDY.

By the end of the night, I had finally calmed down a bit. I did some relaxing pilates and then watched The Blackcoat’s Daughter which was a bad idea to watch right before bed, but…Halloween.

*******

Earlier today, on the phone with Henry: “We should let Chooch have a Halloween party next year,” I suggested.

“I thought you weren’t celebrating Halloween anymore?” Henry said snidely. Ugh, I hate when he actually listens to me.

Say it don't spray it.

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