Kaonashi Ga Suki

Anyone doing anything for Halloween tonight? Parties? Going trick or treating with the kids? Going to Knott’s Scary Farm? As for me, since my boyfriend is out of town, I’m spending this Halloween indoors, on candy duty. Ah well. I’ve had some good Halloweens, but most of them have been so-so Halloweens. I do recall my very first Halloween. Do you remember yours? Mine was rather…eventful.

I was 8 years old, and my parents had bought my brother and me these really cheapo plastic costumes. They were basically just plastic aprons with sleeves you wore over your regular clothes, and they came with a mask. I believe my brother was a robot or Skeletor or something, and I was a witch. I still remember the smell of the plastic as I wore it, and the mask with green, curly hair. I could barely see anything through it. At the time we lived in a townhouse community, so it was pretty easy and safe to go from one house to the other. At one point though, we had to cut through a small parking area. There was this large truck with large side mirrors that extended out. Well, you can guess what happened next. Yep, lil’ ol’ me, who can barely see in the mask and was only ye high at the time, went SMACK into one of the side mirrors as I tried to walk past the truck. Man, that really hurt. Unfortunately it cut our trick or treating short and we had to go home since I felt dizzy.

Later on when stories of potentially tampered candy (razor blades in the apples and such) and crazy child molestors became really popular, my parents stopped taking us trick or treating around the neighborhood. For the next several years until I outgrew trick or treating, they would take us to the safest place they could find- the mall. Yes, we would go trick or treating at the mall. How boring was that? It was brightly lit, and we would be in line as we went from store to store for candy. And a lot of those stores were downright stingy- they would just give coupons- what can an 8 year old do with coupons???? It was really, really lame.

In my life I’ve experienced maybe only 3 fun Halloweens. Sad, huh? They didn’t all necessarily take place on Oct. 31st, but sometime around that week.

1.) Free tickets to Disneyland. The radio station KIIS FM and Disneyland held this promotion where, if you dressed up for Halloween and went to Disneyland before 6am, you would be let in for FREE. So my parents, sister and I (my brother had a midterm that day) hotfooted it over to the magic Kingdom at around 3 am, thinking that was early enough. We were wrong. Hundreds and hundreds of people stood in line waiting for the gates to open. We did get in, and had a blast. Free Disneyland! What’s not to love?

2.) Halloween parade in West Hollywood. This was in college. My friend invited me to hang out with him and his friends for Halloween. First we went to this party given by one of his paramedic friends. It was kind of boring (though there were a lot of cute young paramedics and firefighters), and I was glad when we left for the parade. The West Hollywood Halloween parade is not what you’d consider a regular parade. You see, it’s in Wes Hollywood- a prominant gay community. So you can only imagine what kinds of costumes some people were wearing. I remember the Freddie Mercury lookalike who had these HUGE, HUGE wings; I remember the drag queens who wore Marie-Antoinette style ball gowns made entirely of 24 pack beer boxes.

I remember this one funny bit: I was standing in line with my friend at a booth to get something to drink when I saw a guy dressed up as the Messiah himself, complete with a dove on his shoulder. I said, “Jesus!” and my friend said, “Yeah I know…this line’s pretty long huh?” I then said, “No- Jesus! Over there!” LOL.

3.) Knotts Scary Farm. This was just two years ago, when I went to Knotts Scary Farm for the first time. For those who don’t know, Knott’s Berry Farm is normally an amusement park, but during October they close the park early, then reopen it at night. Bascially, they set up a bunch of haunted houses for people to walk through, and people dressed up as monsters or whatever jump out and scare the bejeezus out of you. They also walk around the park freaking out people by running after them, making noises, and whatnot. Jumpy girls like me who cling on their boyfriends are their favorite target. I was supposed to go this year, but my boyfriend got sick. Well, there’s next year.

So what have been some of YOUR more memorable Halloweens?