Halloween: A time for Family

*This was written Monday*

I am skipping Asshole Monday today (even though you will find many assholes in today’s post) to bring you a story of some of the craziest shit that my two eyes have ever seen. Keep in mind I really haven’t seen that many crazy things in my lifetime.

This about Halloween, a Garrett Family Holiday if there ever was one.

I knew that dad went all out for Halloween, he has for many years, but I had no clue of the extent that he has gone to in the past few years until Sunday night.

I did my own thing with my own house on Halloween with fairly crappy results and hardly any trick-or-treaters. I have no house now, so I went to my parent’s house to shill out Halloween candy to the children/ pre-teens/ full-on adults in Bartlett.

Last year after having about 12 trick-or-treaters and giving up on the pussy-fied children of Southaven, dad told me he needed someone to hand out candy next year. My mom doesn’t much care for handing out candy and dad is too busy rigging things to fall from the sky to worry with it. I volunteered for this last year and I honor my word. So Sunday afternoon I applied my crack-whore make-up, grabbed my artfully torn fishnets and my cape and headed towards the Bartlett with Christy, Ron and the boys in tow.

Surprisingly (not at all surprising) Christy wanted to dress as a slut. She didn’t, but the idea she has was a pretty cute one. She would wear the Sexy Ghostbuster costume and Ron and Garrett would be your run of the mill Ghostbuster and Whitman would be the Stay Puft Marshmallow man. Sadly, Garrett and Whitman don’t know who the Ghostbusters are and Ron wasn’t dressing up. So that was a no go, but still a good idea for a family. I called Garrett a Jedi and he corrected me and told me that he was actually “Master Obi Wan.” And Whitman was a red Power Ranger with a red light saber. No Power Rangers don’t carry light sabers but according to Whitman, they should.  

After the endless drive from Collierville to Bartlett and as we are approaching my parent’s cove we see two signs, about a mile apart, pointing people towards the “Haunted Cove.” Shit.

Very, very small sample

When I say “Shit” I really mean “Holy Fucking Shit, what is going on here?” I walked in to a front yard of insanity. I am not exactly sure if any description that I could give it will do it justice. I am not even sure if pictures would do it justice, it is something that you will have to see for yourself.  I know Christy took a lot of pictures so once she gets them off her camera, I will post them.  But, again, they won’t convey to you the entire experience that this was.

When we arrived, Dad was standing outside admiring his work and talking to the neighbors that appeared, to me at least, to be geeks (we can spot our own). So they thought it was pretty cool and they were in awe of my damn-near 60-year-old father rigging up this madness.

When I say madness, that is exactly what I saw. Not in the things that he put together or the decoration of it all, though it was both impressive and awe inspiring. It was madness in the mass amounts of people, not just kids, but PEOPLE who showed up.

Dad likes to count his trick-or-treaters to know how successful he was at Halloween. Since I was manning the door I had the clicker counter in my hand and I was told to count everyone that came to the door whether they came for candy or just to look. We left at 9:30 and I had already counted over 450 people. That is a LOT of people to come to some random dude’s house on Halloween for nothing to more than to take a peek of his massive collection of Halloween shit.

There were people standing on the sidewalk just looking at everything. There were people posing in front of the house for pictures. There were families who just showed up only to take their picture at this house. There were people posing with the animatronic thingys and proudly snapping photos. There were people EVERYWHERE. And this was just a house in the suburbs. I had no clue it was this much insanity and I was informed that it gets bigger and more people come every year. And I can’t tell you how many cars just drove in the cove to check it out. They didn’t get out of the car or anything, but they saw the signs and just drove in to take a gander. Insanity. And, apparently, the liberal media has caught on to this as well.

Dad was on the news the day before Halloween. It was on WREG and I have no clue of what the segment was called but I am sure it was something along the lines of “Over the Top Halloween in the Mid-South.” We didn’t see it, but someone that came by said “I saw you guys on the news!” This shit is making the NEWS, people. Not that the news around here is that prestigious, but still. The news. It’s just a guy who overly decorates for Halloween. (If anyone can find the clip for me, that would be great. I tried looking but found nothing and he would be pumped to see it.)

But that doesn’t mean that people didn’t want to take a gander at it which leads me to my small rant about trick-or-treaters these days:

What is the cut off age these days, 18? I saw punks with car keys in one hand and a candy bag in the other. And then there were the assholes who didn’t even have a bag, they just held out their hand, like “Go ahead and give me candy even though I know you don’t want to because I am old enough to vote…want a cigarette?”

And what happened to kids saying “Trick or treat!” and “Thank you!” Common Halloween courtesy was few and far between this year. And to all the punk ass kids that were too damn old to be trick or treating, if you are going to ask strangers for candy, at least dress up. Don’t come to me in a sweatshirt and jeans asking for candy. What are you supposed to be? An asshole? Good job pulling that one off. The most memorable offenders of this were the “rock band.” 

Lead Singer: “Trick or treat?”

Me: “Are you seriously asking me for candy? You have a full beard…”

Lead Singer: “We are in a rock band. See my guitar? This is part of the costume.”

Me: “But that’s a real beard and you seriously drove yourself here.”

Lead Singer: *showing his guitar* “See, we are in costume.”

I reluctantly gave this asshat candy but instructed him to shave next time if he is really going to trick or treat even though he is a grown ass man. It was him and two of his friends dressed like any normal 18 year old kids who don’t give a fuck and they called themselves a rock band.

I also had a hard time giving candy to an early teen dressed in garter snaps and a mini-skirt but at least she was dressed up! She was dressed up as a slutted-out Strawberry Shortcake but it was a costume. Props where props are due.

I have to give a few kids a pass for not saying anything when I handed them their candy. A lot of them were so distracted by everything going on around them that they couldn’t think straight and I forgive them for this. I am just applauding small children for being  brave enough to walk up to the door.

When I was little there is no amount of candy in the world that would have made me walk up this house but there were a surprising amount of kids that had no issue with it. Most kids came to the door and bravely got their candy. One little girl, I would say she was around eight, was dressed as a candy corn witch and she marched up the door and loudly proclaimed, “I am going up to that door right now and getting my candy. I am not scared. It is just a house!” I applauded her moxie. She is going to be fun when she grows up. I can tell. I awarded her with a good hand-full of candy.

Yes, we were very close to running out of candy. I gave out a certain number of pieces to each kid and that decided upon by their age. Old kids got one piece, adorable small children got however much I could get into my hand. I also had help in the candy giving out department. Garrett wanted to help but he only wanted to help the chicks. And not just any chicks, it was the tweens and the teenage girls. He was all “I want to do it!” He’s five and he has serious game.

Speaking of future dirty old men, my dad took it upon himself to point every father/ boy/ son/ punk to the front door to “check out” his “single” daughter. Geez. I guess he didn’t take into account that if I had taken interest in any of the males he sent my way it would have resulted in either a felony or adultery, thanks dad!

Overall it was a pretty fun night. Dad gets pretty into the whole thing and he was pretty proud of both the insanity the house was causing and his daughter donning copious amounts of fake blood to hand out candy for him. Who knew I could make him proud by dressing like an asshole? It really is that easy, apparently.

You might be asking yourselves, “If he does all this for Halloween, what does he do for Christmas?!” The answer to that is: absolutely nothing. He could care less about Christmas.  He puts lights in the windows and has a blow-up or two and that is it. He doesn’t even want a Christmas tree. Halloween is his Christmas.



Here, small child, pose in front of these skulls and fake dead people



You also might be asking, “Aren’t Garrett and Whitman terrified?” Not in the least. I can see how a regular toddler would piss their pants at the sight of animatronics insanity, not them. They have gotten used to it over the years and they know it is just their crazy granddaddy being crazy. When we pulled up the house Sunday Whitman yelled, “This is AWESOME!” And I think you are forgetting that they have ME as an aunt. They have seen far more blood and guts and monsters and zombies than all other children they know combined. They are phased by little.

The only thing they are scared of is the butler. His eyes follow you wherever you walk and it breathes in and out. It’s pretty creepy, for sure. They are fine with the severed clown heads, the demonic baby, the imprisoned demon, the skulls, the spiders, the graves, the skeletons, the rats, the crows, the mummy in a real coffin, and all the rigged ghosts flying overhead. They are cool with all of that, but they don’t fuck around with that butler.

I really need to amp up my costume for next year. While perusing the store for anything reasonable I could wear for a Halloween costume I found a Bellatrix Lestrange costume complete with Death Eater mask. Yeah, that is what I am going to be next year, I am pretty sure. It was full of awesome. Let it be said now that I do not support Voldermort or his army of Death Eaters.

Yes, I am already planning my costume for next year. I am my father’s daughter.