Candy For Strangers

Ghostbusters was needed on Friday as Paisley Perkins dressed as the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man tore through the downtown trick or treating event looking for candy. [Marc Hayot/Herald-Leader]

My house just got visited by the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. This is the best goddamned holiday ever.

OMFG this severe weather they warned us about is so severe! We are experiencing gusts of up to THREE MILES PER HOUR and the most impersistent, weak drizzle on record. I literally just watched a child die in the streets. Protect your children! May God have mercy on us all! The limp, bloated bodies of children in tattered costumes litter the gutters here. I’ve counted forty so far. The lucky ones were struck by lightning and killed instantly. If only parents would have heeded the dire warnings of the weather men and the doomsaying local news. So many children lost… so many children…

What the hell is the deal with communities canceling trick-or-treating because of rain? Way to piss off parents and teach children to be pussies. Have you never heard of umbrellas? It’s Halloween, for fuck’s sake! Kids will dress up and walk through fire for that candy. Let ’em!

UPDATE: A whiny parent accused me of making Halloween about kids being tough enough to handle weather. Actually, the weather report I just watched said spotty showers and gusts. I didn’t hear anything about the doom typhoon they described. But that’s not the point. I never said anything about seeing how tough a kid is. Kids will go out in any kind of weather for trick-or-treating. It’s not the kids I have the problem with, because it’s not the kids who cancel things. It’s overprotective adults who hyperbolize every potential hazard and treat children as if they’re so fragile that everything will break them. That’s the problem. If you treat a child like he or she is weak and broken, eventually you’ll be right. Besides, you’re kind of making my point. Two-year-old kids don’t have a concept of Halloween. They don’t get why it’s cool and weird and unusual. They aren’t developed enough to get it. If you’re taking a two-year-old out trick-or-treating you’re not doing it for the toddler. You’re doing it for you.

The forecast “…the POSSIBILITY… wind GUSTS…” WHAT A SURPRISE. The weather wasn’t bad at all, and every kid I gave candy to was having a blast despite the drizzle and mild wind. I love being right. That’s why I do it so often. I’m not trying to beat a dead horse here, but I live about half a mile from downtown. Trick or treat time was 6-8, and I never went inside that whole time. If there were 50 mph winds, I promise you I would have felt them. There were not.

I thought of a couple of good rainy Halloween costumes myself. The Gorton’s Fisherman is my favorite. The kid dressed up as the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man had it made. It was an inflatable costume, so he was insulated and the rain rolled right off him. It wasn’t cold, but I bet it could have dropped fifteen degrees and he never would have felt it.

Locked Out

Hey, next time you lock yourself out of the house and sit outside for an hour and a half in the rain lamenting what a dumbass you are, go check the back door. You may have not only failed to lock it, but it may be sitting there wide open because you failed to even close it, because you’re an even bigger dumbass than you imagined.

2.5 Seconds

I can’t say this about many contests of physical prowess, but apparently I will kick your ass at bobbing for apples.

This Actually IS My First Rodeo

First rodeo I’ve ever been to, and the riders’ equipment is being carried by girls. The food court is manned by girls. The fencing and hay bales are being carried by girls. Everything is being done by girls. I thought these were supposed to be tough, do-it-yourself men? These men are fucking pussies. They take off their clean, pretty pristine little cowboy hats and put on Kevlar body armor, helmets and full face masks. What the fuck is this shit?!

A calf rider decided to ride to “What Does The Fox Say.” I couldn’t make this shit up. He fell off and got trampled. I couldn’t have been happier. Next rider up was announced with: “…she’s fourteen years old from Cincinnati, Ohio, and this girl’s been riding everything in sight…” What kind of piece of shit publicly sexualizes a fourteen year old girl? Rodeo trash, that’s who. I fucking hate every man here. And now the rodeo’s been on hold for twenty minutes because two bulls won’t get back in the pen. Apparently herding cattle is beyond the ability of the fifty fucking “cowboys” milling around, hiding behind the fences.

Rodeo Fact: Rodeo announcers can say the word “bull” with three syllables. Beh-YOU-wull. They’re announcing these bull names and they’re all stuff like “#79, Ballsmasher! #26, Soulraper! #48, Hitler’s Cock!” And in the middle of all this, in the most doomsaying voice possible, “#34… PEANUT BUTTER FUUUDGE…!!” I laughed so hard I seriously thought I might shit myself.

I want to take back what I said. There were three men who actually WERE doing something useful. It was the rodeo clowns. When the riders with helmets and face masks fell of their bulls, they ran for the fences and climbed away from the bulls like scared monkeys. But the clowns, who had nothing protecting their heads at all, ran around distracting the pissed off bulls, making it safe for the riders to escape. And when one of the riders would get trampled, it was the clowns who would run out and distract the bull while another clown pulled the guy from under the bull and got him to safety. THESE guys are fucking cowboys. These other poser douchebags need to get with the program.

Final verdict: Despite the occasional trampling, rodeos are surprisingly boring. You pay an entry fee to sit there and wait for yet another guy in Liberace’s chaps to fall off a cow. And I never got the answer to the single most urgently burning question I had about rodeos, which was “Why the FUCK am I at a rodeo?”