It’s snowing in Utah today. I don’t recall it snowing on Halloween in all the years I’ve lived here, which is now the better part of a decade (though I don’t know if “better” is really the right word). I’m curious whether it will prevent trick-or-treaters from making their rounds. I suspect kids have a post office-style “neither rain nor sleet nor dark of night” kind of credo when it comes to that sort of thing. At any rate, no one will be home at Eric’s Unit tonight to answer the door anyway. I didn’t even buy any candy. In these times of financial woe, it’s hard to justify buying candy just to give it away to other people, who never even HAD jobs.
Like I said, I don’t remember it snowing here on Halloween before, though it certainly has been cold. I remember as a kid, in Southern California, hearing my mom talk with another mom about how it’s too bad Halloween doesn’t come sooner in the year. Kids want to be some scantily clad character like Tarzan or Wonder Woman, but by the time it’s Oct. 31, it’s too cold. What’s funny is that this was in Southern California, where “too cold” meant it got down to maybe 60, which is nothing to the hardy Utahns and their frozen, snowy Halloweens.
I saw a greeter at Wal-Mart today who was dressed like a scary clown, which I realize is already a redundancy, but she was dressed like an especially scary one. The makeup smile was noticeably creepier than usual, a sort of Revlon maw of death that beckoned shoppers to their unwitting demise. If I’d seen her on my way in, rather than on my way out, I wouldn’t have gone in, I don’t think.
I hear reports from my former place of employment (The Daily Herald) that the advertising department has decorated its entire section of the building to look like a pirate ship, and all the employees are dressed as pirates. (Just think if they’d put this kind of energy toward the sale of ads, they might actually, I don’t know, sell some ads.) I sort of wish I were there, because I like pirates, and seeing the ad department in their various states of play — throwing footballs around, shooting Nerf basketball, singing songs — was one of my favorite Daily Herald pastimes anyway.
Last year, the classified ad department made their section look like a graveyard, with cardboard tombstones all around. The only problem with this is that the classified ad department is also where people come in to buy obituaries, and I can’t imagine those mourning loved ones would be amused at the sight of fake tombstones with pun names and clever rhyming epitaphs festooning the office.
Today, reportedly, none of the news employees are dressed in costumes, other than the thrift-store shabby outfits that constitute a newspaper reporter’s daily attire. I agree with keeping an air of professionalism, particularly in a setting where professionalism is a rapidly decreasing commodity.
Happy Halloween to you and yours. I hope at this hectic time of year, with all the hustle, not to mention bustle, that we can all take a moment to reflect on the true meaning of the season, which is Lucifer.
