This is Nuts

Today, as I ate my peanut butter sandwich, blissfully free of hives or death by anaphylactic shock, I pondered the conundrum of the peanut and the recent peanut-allergy-related hype.

I realize that my use of the word ‘hype’, a term often used in conjunction with such things as skinny jeans and Gangnam Style dance moves, to describe a serious health concern might offend some people, but I stand by it.  Maybe the nut allergies themselves are not a trend—I’m sure children for decades have been suffering from this hardship—but the amount of attention placed on those afflicted is recent.  Take this example from my teaching career.

In the year 2001, I taught a seventh grader named Andrew.  Andrew was a “normal” kid.  I had no official paperwork on him; he was in no special programs at school; I had not spoken with his parents via phone or meeting.  One day after lunch, Andrew came up to me and mumbled, “Ith hink gotta olden a hut.” 

I said, “What?” 

He said, “I think ig oughta old of an hut.” 

I said, “One more time?” 

He said, “I think I got a hold of a nut.” 

Even when the sounds formed into actual words, I still had trouble comprehending.  Then a lightbulb went on.  “Oh!” I said.  “You mean a peanut?”  He nodded.  “Are you allergic to peanuts?”  Another nod.  “Do you need to go to the clinic?”  More nodding.  I sent him.  The school nurse pumped him full of Benedryl and sent him back to class, where he promptly fell asleep.  And that was that.  No one had told me this kid had a peanut allergy and no one referred to what happened that day as an “incident”.  But these days, things are different.

Last year, in the fall of 2011, I taught five students who had 504 plans (a legal document created for students with a physical or mental impairment that lists classroom needs and accommodations) officially recording their nut allergies.  Paperwork was signed, meetings were held, words of caution were imparted.  Two of these students, I was told, could not even come into contact with a peanut. One girl’s form contained a half-page list of possible symptoms to watch out for and it included, between redness in the cheeks and shortness of breath… (I am not joking here, this is word for word)… a “sense of impending doom”.  Yes.  I signed a legal document during my last year of teaching, promising to—while teaching Language Arts to twenty-six seventh graders in my sixth period class—be on alert for a look of “impending doom” to cross one thirteen-year-old girl’s face, which is a problem since most thirteen-year-old girls wear that expression perpetually anyway.

For those of you not in education, I want to explain this just a tad further.  For those words to appear on that document, a parent had to say them in a meeting with school officials.  School officials had to take them seriously enough to type them into the computer.  A minimum of three adults had to concur in writing that those words belonged on that form.  Now that form follows that girl through every year of school (unless it is later edited or dismissed) and is given to every single one of her teachers, who then become legally responsible for following it.  As a teacher of this student, I was advised not to eat peanuts or peanut products in my classroom before she arrived, despite the fact that peanut butter sandwiches were served every day in the school cafeteria and she never once perished while purchasing her Gatorade in the lunch line.

There were never any incidents with any of those five students.  As far as I know, none of them ever “got a hold of a nut” at school.  However, another student did miss the big state standardized test that year because he had a “food allergy challenge” scheduled for the same day.  The email from his mom regarding this unavoidable conflict included the following:  “[Name] has been allergic to nuts all his life, but recent tests indicate that he may no longer be allergic to some of the tree nuts… We are hoping he can tolerate the pecans in the food challenge, because that will open some doors for him (pecan pies, pralines, etc.).”  This was a very sweet and supportive mom, and it was nice of her to let me know of the absence, but I still find it odd how much random information parents are willing to share with their children's teachers.

Although I find a lot of this ridiculous, with kids I can somewhat understand the paranoia.  I imagine it’s pretty traumatic to watch your small child experience a severe allergic reaction, and I don’t blame parents for wanting to prevent something like that from ever happening again.  (My dog will never be given another rawhide treat after the time I saw him choke on one and had to reach into his throat to pull out the white sticky mass that was lodged there, so I get it.)  In truth, a lot of this documentation is put into place in elementary school when the kids are young and less aware of their health concerns and more likely to eat something they shouldn’t if an adult is not paying attention.  But then the forms go unedited and the next thing you know the kids are in middle school and completely capable of taking care of themselves but still have teachers awkwardly reminding them not to ingest something they haven’t eaten in ten years.

What I don’t understand is when this paranoia carries over to adults.  Every year, my school district held a two-day professional development conference at one of the high schools.  Every teacher was required to attend (though not all did) and presenters from all over the country flocked in to impart their expertise on everything from assessment to vocabulary games.  Beginning in 2004, a bold red text started appearing at the bottom of the email of conference information explaining that a couple of the presenters had severe air-borne peanut allergies and for that reason, they asked everyone not to bring any peanut products into the building during the conference.  ?????  At the sight of that warning, several questions jumped immediately to my mind, the first and foremost of which being How the heck did you people survive this long?  Again those afflicted with this allergy will probably find my words here callous, but I have to believe that this is being blown out of proportion because if an email has to be sent to 2,000 people alerting them of your condition before you can set foot into a public school building, then how are you not a hermit?  How do you go to restaurants and sporting events and parties and (horror of all horrors) the grocery store where aisles and aisles of packaged evil lay in wait to suffocate you?  And how did you get to this conference?  Because the last time I was on an airplane, the nice flight attendant gave every single passenger in that tiny, air-tight cabin a package of peanuts to open and eat and drop on the floor and exhale into the canned air for three and a half hours.

That’s my argument for why all this peanut allergy hype is nuts.  If Southwest Airlines can still pass out these tiny little allergen grenades on their flights, I’m thinking that pretty much everyone else should be able to walk into a building or take a math class without first announcing to the world that their throat could close up if they eat a Reeces.  

Images from:

http://www.xplosivegrowth.com/2012/10/28/5-good-things-to-know-about-peanut-butter/

http://www.peanutvan.com.au/archive.php?start_from=49&ucat=&archive=&subaction=&id=&

http://cheezburger.com/2879331328

http://peanutfreekid.com/store/Default.asp

http://www.weddingwire.com/wedding-forums/nwr-work-related-need-happy-thoughts/dd0a90e4c28258e9.html

The Christmas Letter

With a few interesting exceptions, I am not a fan of Christmas letters detailing the ups and downs of the sender’s year.  I have never written one myself.  But, it turns out that I am not the only aspiring writer in the family, and the last thing I would ever want to do is stand in the way of someone else’s desire to share their stories with the world.  So, with that said, I hope you enjoy this holiday letter from Gabby, the tabby cat.

[Disclaimer:  The views and opinions expressed in this post belong to Gabby the Cat only and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the blogger herself.]

Greetings From Gabby

Dear Feline Friends and Their Humans,

Greetings!  Meowy Christmas and Happy Mew Year to you all!  I hope this letter finds you and your furry loved ones well.  I know that everyone is busy this time of year ingesting curly ribbon, bathing obsessively, and searching for the warmest spot to nap, but I thought I should catch you up on everything that’s been going on down here in Austin.  We’ve had a big year too!

2012 started out pretty routinely in the Juettner household.  January was cold, necessitating a bit of snuggling for the sake of warmth.  Of course the rules of snuggling must always be followed.  Rule #1: Try to snuggle with someone who will snuggle you back, because it’s more fun that way.  Rule #2: If a consenting snuggle-partner can’t be found, take what you can get. Rule #3: Never ever snuggle with a dog, no matter how warm he looks.

 (<-- Rule #1, in effect)

(Rule #2, in effect -->)

Disgusting.

Speaking of dogs, this one is still here, unfortunately.  We were all hoping he was just passing through, but it now looks like the clumsy oaf is here to stay.   I honestly do not know what my humans see in him.  He just keeps getting bigger and BIGGER and despite all the diplomas he brings home I haven’t seen any improvement in manners or grooming.  For a couple of months they came to their senses and started keeping him in a cage, but now he’s out again, draining our water bowl and taking up too much space on the couch.  I just don’t understand why they need him when they already live with four purrfectly good cats.

Equally disgusting.

In February, Gink turned thirteen and we had a small  party/intervention for him.  Now I’m not one to hack up a hairball and tell, but everyone knows Gink has some issues.  So Zora and Toby and I simply suggested that it might be time for him to give up his little “friend”.  Well, talk about the litter hitting the fan!  It did not go well.  That doll is still hanging around the house.  My human washes it once in a while, but I don’t care.  There is not enough soap in the world…

Me in the penthouse

Spring and summer were fairly uneventful.  We got a new kitty condo, so now I’m living the highlife.  And our humans left for a couple of weeks.  I had mixed feelings about it.  On the one paw, they took the dog with them, so that was a plus.  But on the other paw, I had to listen to 14 days of Gink muttering to himself about how he was going to kill the poor girl who came over to give him his medicine.  (Seriously.  The guy has issues.)  Anyway, eventually our humans came back and order was restored.

In August, I kept waiting for our female human to start leaving the house again, like usual, but… she didn’t.  For some reason she’s been hanging around the house a LOT more, demanding attention and sticking her nose in our business.  It’s really been an adjustment for us all.  Zora hasn’t been able to continue her “sofa art” and I don’t have the quiet necessary to pursue my study of string theory.  (My theory is that if the string moves, I must pounce on it.)  But it is nice when she uses her opposable thumbs to open the porch door.

Toby is actually a dog-supporter.
I try not to think about it.

Then last month everyone had a big hissy fit over the election.  At times like these, it's difficult to keep one's opinions to oneself.  I’m all for the legalization of catnip, but once they start talking about equal rights for dogs, that’s when I get fuzzed up.  Our kind know how to handle ourselves in public, which is why we are allowed our freedoms, but those good-for-nothing canines need to be kept on leashes—short ones!  Sorry, I don’t mean to get political.  But some of those ideas being thrown around really poof my tail!

Now it’s December and we’re all getting ready for the holidays.  Zora is hiding in gift bags and Gink is spending "quality time" with his doll by the fire, while visions of belly rubs dance through Toby's head.  (I don't know what's dancing through the dog's head and I don't care.)  My favorite tradition is probably the annual tree of toys.  Every year, my humans set it up and say, "I hope we don't lose any this year..." and that's my cue!  Each night, after they go to bed, I take one toy off the tree and hide it deep under the couch.  Then the next morning, they wonder out loud where it could be.  And the best part is when the finally look under the couch in January and find all the toys I hid for them.  They're always so happy and excited!  Humans can be quite adorable at times.

Well, that’s about it!  2012 is swiftly drawing to a close.  We’ll all be hiding under the bed from New Year's Eve fireworks before you know it!  So keep your litterboxes clean, your food bowls full, and don’t forget to leave some milk out for Santa.  (I’m keeping an eye out for him this year.  I want to ask him if he’ll take the dog.)

Peace and Paws,

Gabby

Warning Signs

Car Talk

I love the show “Car Talk” on NPR.  This is not because I am into cars or know about cars or even care about cars that much because I’m not and I don’t and I never have been.   But you don’t have to be into cars to enjoy listening to Tom and Ray Magliozzi (otherwise known as “Click” and “Clack”) diagnose car trouble on the radio.  Those guys are hilarious and it’s amazing how much advice they can give people over the phone.  Tuning in to their show is like listening to Abbott and Costello solve mysteries while blindfolded, and really, who wouldn’t like that?  My favorite part is where the people who call in try to mimic the sound that their car is making.  There are some brave and talented souls out there.

Just because I don’t love cars in general doesn’t mean I don’t love my car.  My car is a 2005 Honda Civic Hybrid named Heidi. She was my first new car to purchase by myself and I approached that very serious and adult decision with all the maturity and expertise of a first grader choosing a retirement plan.  Without doing any research or shopping around at all, I drove to the Honda dealership and bought a car. 

Heidi when she was shiny and new

See, I had decided that I wanted to save the world and I was going to do that by purchasing a hybrid.  There weren’t a lot of hybrid options in my price range back in 2005.  I was pretty much choosing between the Toyota Prius and the Honda Civic, and I thought the Prius “looked weird” so I went with the Civic.  (Seriously, I now spend more time comparing toothpaste brands than I did shopping for a new vehicle.)  Luckily, my extreme naivety didn’t get me into too much trouble at the dealership because there just wasn’t a lot of room to wheel and deal.  I wanted a Civic Hybrid, and that’s what I got.  The only real choice I had to make was the color.  (I went with “Shoreline Mist Metallic” and I’ve never regretted it.)

At some point during the process of putting myself in debt, the salesman explained to me how the “Integrated Motor Assist” system worked and mentioned that a new battery pack would cost $8,000.  But at my look of panic, he quickly reassured me that it was guaranteed for 80,000 miles and said I’d probably be driving something new by then anyway.  For some reason that seemed like a perfectly reasonable prediction, so I nodded and continued signing my paycheck away.

Junk in My Trunk

Heidi is a good little car.  Despite her dings and dents (for some reason people really like to run into her) and my husband’s grumbling that she has no pick-up on the highway (she does get up to speed eventually though, says the ticket he got in Italy, Texas), she generally gets me where I want to go with few complaints.  But when Heidi turned six years old, that big $8,000 battery pack in the trunk died.  (!!!)  The good news was that these days those batteries only cost about $4,000 (yea?) and the even better news was that Heidi only had 78,272 miles on her so the repair was covered under warranty.  (Yea!)

After being told that she was “good to go”, we were back on the road together, singing along to the radio and laughing about the bullet we dodged and things were smooth sailing… for 17 months.  And then the IMA system died again.  This time it was NOT covered by warranty, but the nice man at Howdy Honda got the company to pay for MOST of the new battery due to “the circumstances”.  (The “circumstances” were that a battery that in theory should have lasted another 80,000 miles only lasted 16,000.)

So… after ANOTHER new battery pack was installed, we were back on the road again, though more cautiously this time, with the radio volume on low and very little singing at all.  And yet, STILL something is not right.  Heidi’s dashboard just keeps lighting up with bright orange symbols of disaster.  I fear the end may be near.  But... it’s not fair… she’s so young.

Give It to Me Straight, Doc

I wish I could call the guys at Car Talk and ask them to help me figure out what’s really wrong with my little car.  But I can’t.  Because 1) after 35 years on the air, they retired last month, and 2) that’s not how mechanics do things anymore.  During none of the occasions that I have taken Heidi to the shop have I had to describe or mimic or act out her problems.  All I do is point to the orange light on the dash and they connect a little doo-dad to the computer and read a code and fix what the code says to fix.  I hate it.  It is so backwards seeming to me, so impersonal.  I guess I should be thankful that we have such modern conveniences when it comes to diagnosing these expensive pieces of our lives, but I miss the intuition, the guessing, the exploratory surgery.  After the new barrage of lights came on, I asked my guy at Honda, “When they replaced the IMA, did they check out the rest of the car?”  He said, “No, there were no other codes.”  Well… ok.  But maybe you should have anyway.

"I ate a red candle I found on
the bathtub and my belly hurts."

I can’t help thinking about my dog.  He’s a hybrid too, though we’re not exactly sure of the make and model.  Sometimes I wish Uno could talk so that he could tell me what’s wrong when he doesn’t feel good.  But he can’t, so I have to make my best guess.  And I like the fact that when I take him to the vet and give my amateur opinion of the problem, my awesome veterinarian checks out the whole dog instead of just the one body part that seems to be the trouble.  If I take him in for an itchy left ear, Doc looks in the right one too.  If I take him in for a sore back leg, Doc examines all of his legs and joints.  It just makes sense!

I know that computers run our lives now—my dog already had a chip inside him (which kind of freaks me out if I think about it too much)—and I know that sometimes it would be easier if I could just push a button and find out what my pup’s symptoms mean, but I am NOT ready for the “Integrated Doggy Assist” system to come along and take the place of my vet’s forty years of expertise and know-how.

Yeah, I drew that.

Down the Road

I’m not sure what’s in store for my little Heidi.  We’ll probably keep making repairs on her for a while longer, begrudgingly, rather than shop for something new.  And when we do go shopping, it will not be for another hybrid.  My husband is fed up with them, and I can’t really blame him.  His 2010 Volkswagon Jetta TDI gets better gas mileage than my car AND has power.  Who knew?  (Oh, yeah, he did, because he actually researched his vehicle choices.)

As for the dog, we’ve made the investment for the long haul, though we know there is going to be some body work in our future.  I just wish those legs came with a warranty. 

5 Tips For a Proper Haunting

October is just around the corner.

When I was a kid, that meant excitement was in the air.  It meant it was almost time to decorate the front porch with pumpkins and the back room with antique (or at least very old) cardboard cut-outs of skeletons and black cats, goblins and werewolves.   We’d tape them to the windows and, from the inside, they displayed a glossy array of spooky merriment, colorful scenes and detailed faces.  But from outside, the windows cast eerie silhouettes, faceless, vague.  Indistinct features creating a distinct uneasiness.

Almost-October also meant it was time to start heading out to the back lot at dusk to stare at the old ghost shed and watch for things.  Because October was the time of year when things happened out there, and once in a while, they happened in late September too.

It was during October that the ghost of Old Bill Edwards used to stir.  I guess he was

restless.  Maybe his spirit was troubled.  Or maybe once a year, he just liked to stretch his old bones and move around a little bit.  Whatever the reason, it was always in the weeks before Halloween when we would see things.  Dark shapes in the back lot.  Gray smoke rising from the trees.  Once I even saw a fire ball shoot out of the chimney of the ghost shed, Old Bill Edwards’ former home, a chimney that was no longer connected to any stove or fire place.  We heard things too—moans and creaks.  Being kids, we were terrified, but we were also excited.  We wanted to see more!  So we tiptoed as close to the shed as we dared and threw rocks at it, trying to get Old Bill Edwards to come out. 

One time, a rock flew back at US.

Many of my friends believed me about the ghost and it became a great slumber party game.  Sneak out to the back lot in the dark, dare each other to throw a rock, see who was brave enough to get the closest.  Other parents probably thought my family was pretty weird, but I didn’t know that at the time.  Taunting the ghost may have been a once-in-a-lifetime experience for those other little girls, but it was just another Friday night at the Kinder house for me.

Some kids didn’t believe.  They noticed the fact that my dad always seemed to be absent when the sightings took place.  Running an errand maybe or at least back at the house.  He was never with us when we saw anything.  They said it was all him, and he was just trying to scare us.  But I knew better.  My dad would NEVER throw a rock at me, I told them, not that close to my face.  He scolded US when we did that!  And the fire ball?  That wooden shed was so old and filled with so much paper and cardboard, if it ever caught fire there’d be no stopping it.  My dad would never risk something so dangerous.  I shook my head and knew I was right.

Besides, it was always in October, when my dad was working on the annual Halloween party, that his hammer would start disappearing.  He’d be working near the well, hammering some stakes into the ground for tombstones, set his hammer down for a minute, then go to pick it up again and it would be gone.  A search of the property would find it on the back porch or lying in the middle of the back lot or, once, inside the ghost shed.  My dad said it was so aggravating each time it happened.  Of course, I understood.

Even in the daylight, the ghost shed was scary.  Even in the daylight in JULY.  It was cluttered and musty and eyes peered out from every wall, some painted on and others forming themselves out of knotholes or shadows.  There were mystery bottles lining the shelves and the floor was rotted in places, threatening to catch your foot and hold you if you tried to leave in a hurry.  To make matters worse, this is where my dad stored the Halloween decorations during the year. 

And these weren’t your typical Halloween decorations.  These were the ones used for the annual haunted house, the Kinder tradition that’s been going on for… come to think of it… 50 years now.

Inside the ghost shed today-- it's had some renovations since my childhood, but it's still creepy.

Giant Styrofoam crates held homemade dummies folded in half, their eyes staring up blankly, their white-gloved hands reaching out over the sides.  Cardboard boxes contained various “parts”, heads mostly, an arm here and there, maybe a foot.  Somewhere there would be a bag of old rubber masks—a smell like no other, I can tell you—that had to be peeled apart and aired out, their scraggly hair combed for spiders.  Then of course there was the cast-iron cauldron in the corner, and the tombstones.  (More about those later.)

As an adult, the start of October still brings the same sense of excitement for me.  While I don’t have the thrill of a haunted shed nearby, I do have the joyful task of spookifying my house and yard for trick-or-treaters, and therein lies my purpose. 

Behold…

Carie’s Halloween Decorating Advice: 5 Tips for a Proper Haunting

1.  Celebrities Not Welcome.

You know the phrase fear of the unknown? Let it be your mantra when decorating. 

I never understood how people could think that those plastic store-bought Freddy Krueger or Michael Myers masks were so creepy.  Easily recognizable horror movie characters are not scary.  If you want a kid to hesitate before knocking on your door on Halloween night, don’t sit Freddy Krueger in your porch swing.  He knows it’s not Freddy Krueger.  Instead, stuff an old pair of overalls with newspaper, put some black boots and white gloves on it.  Hang a nondescript skull or pumpkin mask on its head, draw eyeballs on the cloth behind the cutouts for the eyes, and – just for good measure – stick a real ax in its hand.

You’re thinking, That won’t look realistic.  Will it?  And now you’re having the same conversation with yourself that the poor trick-or-treater will be having on Halloween night.  Realistic or not, it is at least unknown.  If you’re just trying to show your neighbors that you know there’s a holiday coming up, decorate however you want.  But if your goal is to SCARE people, then you have to get creative.  If any part of your victim’s brain will be thinking, Oh yeah, that’s the guy from that movie, or even worse, Oh yeah, I saw that thing at Target, then you have lost the battle before it’s even begun.

2. Name-Drop.

While masks and dummies should be nondescript and unfamiliar, the place to get very, VERY specific is with your tombstones.   The cemetary that my dad always creates for the parties is full of homemade wooden gravestones propped up by bricks or stakes, the messages hand-painted and extremely… personal.  By that, I mean that every family member and every party guest has a tombstone in the back yard, each with an original and detailed inscription.  Mine says, “Here lies Carie.  She tried to outrun the goblin.” At the bottom, scrawled in a different hand, it says, “I got her!  YUM YUM!”  My aunt’s was always my favorite.  “Leona—taken on this road by the thing.  She left behind a loving family, one arm, and her head.”  I loved the grave markers, and my dad’s creativity, until the year he included one for my cat.  “Here lies Spots—Stupid little cats should not ride brooms.  He fell far, landed hard, buried deep.”  NOT funny, Dad. 

Anyway, I highly suggest you get specific with your tombstones too.  Know the names of the neighborhood kids?  Invent fun ways of killing them off and fill up your cemetery.  Think their parents won’t find that amusing?  Then make up names.  Anything is better than the plain old R.I.P.  However, those cheap store-bought R.I.P. markers can be a good starting point.  All you have to do is flip them around to the blank side and get a white paint pen or some shoe polish and create your own message.  Easy and effective.

3.  Keep It Simple.

The simpler the better, in my opinion.  Those elaborate displays of mechanical hands and ear-piercing screams and flashing lights are good for a startle, but not a real scare.  It’s too much, too quickly.  It will cause a brief heart attack, sure, but before long the former victim will be laughing and activating it again just so they can prove how fake it is.  That’s not fear.  The scariest decoration we ever had, the one that sticks best in my memory, was just an old, white, button-up shirt on a wire hanger with a white plastic skull on top, wearing a simple black witch hat.  It didn’t do anything, but it was terrifying. 

First, it had that unknown quality.  What was it?  A skeleton?  Or a witch?  Or what?  It had no name, no easy identification.  We like things to have names.  Second, when hung from a bush or tree branch, this… thing… was light enough to sway eerily in the breeze, turning this way and that, nodding and spinning at will.  Its free movement, especially at night when the whiteness of it almost glowed, increased its creepiness.  Plus, sometimes one arm of the shirt would get snagged on a leaf or twig and suddenly the lifeless shape seemed to be jauntily leaning on an elbow or waving at passers by.  And third, as I said before, it didn’t do anything.  And these days, sometimes that’s the scariest thing of all.  Kids are expecting the big display.  Everything these days blinks and speaks and reaches and grabs.  So that’s what they’re waiting for.  And if you think about it, the anticipation of the scare is usually worse than the scare itself.  This skull-witch-creature looked like it might do something.  And that was enough. 

 

(Got masks you aren't using this year?  Decorate with them!  

Nail them to a tree or stick them on a dummy.)

[Sidenote:  The first time that I stayed home on Halloween night in my own house and handed out candy to trick-or-treaters instead of going to a party, I bought a large ceramic bowl with a large ceramic hand in the center of it to hold all the mini Twix-es and Snickers I bought.  This was the year AFTER the plastic candy bowls with the plastic hands that moved became popular.  My hand didn’t move.  But the kids were terrified of it.  It took them SO long to get their candy and many of them spilled pieces when they jerked back with lightning speed.  I spent the whole night consoling, reassuring, saying, I promise, it doesn’t move.   But these kids had been trained well and they didn’t believe me.  One little girl—she was maybe five years old, so small I had to kneel down in front of her with the bowl—would NOT stick her hand in.  I told her, It’s ok honey, the hand doesn’t move.  She looked me right in the eye and said, I think I saw it move.  Not cool.  I shoved a Milky Way in her bag and closed the door.]

4.  Perfectionists Be Gone!

Don’t organize everything to death.  (Those of you who know me know that this is the rule it is most difficult for me to follow.)  Evenly spaced bats and symmetrical tombstones are not scary.  DISorganization is scary.  The unplanned, the haphazard, the unexpected—THAT’S scary.  Scatter some bones randomly in the yard.  Hang most of your ghosts and goblins, but take one or two and just jam them in a bush or toss them on the roof and see where they land.  Maybe leave one dummy face down in a flower bed somewhere.  At first, the neighbors will think you just forgot it.  Then they’ll start to wonder.   Eventually some kid will dare another kid to kick it.  He will.  DON’T MOVE IT.  At that point, you’ll finally have the twisted, mangled, half-slumped, dirt-encrusted body that will lend authenticity to the rest of your display.

5.  Beware of Scaring Yourself.

If you follow the tips above when decorating this year, you will have a truly terrifying house and/or yard.  And that’s great!  But if (like me) you also have the attention span of a goldfish, the first heart attack you inspire will probably be your own.  So, if you are prone to bouts of paranoia or tend to drop things when startled, you might want to stick some handy post-it notes around your house for a few days.  For instance…

* Note inside the front door—“There’s a clown on the porch.”

* Note on the kitchen trash—“There’s a giant spider on the garbage bin.”

* Note on the dog’s leash—“Do not trip over the severed head.”

(Safety first, after all.)

Then again, my problem isn’t usually the random accidental scaring.  My problem is karma.  Every year, I try to scare my husband with something.  A skeleton hanging in his bathroom, a fake tarantula on his desk chair, etc.  The first problem is that I have no patience.  Instead of waiting until right before he gets home to set the trap, I set it hours early, WAY too long for my poor little goldfish brain.  The second problem is that I honestly think part of my brain is working for the dark side.  Because not only do I forget about my prank, but then I end up doing something extremely uncharacteristic which puts me in the path of horror.   I think I’ll clean Mark’s bathroom for him.  Wouldn’t that be a nice surpr… AAAAA!  Time to watch that internet video.  Hmm… Mark’s computer screen is bigger than mine… AAAAA!  Oh well, at least then I know that it works.

Happy almost-October, everyone! 

And may you make at least one trick-or-treater pee his pants this year.