The Halloween Grinch

October 30th, 2013 § 2 comments

The other night, I received a text from my husband who was in Berlin for work. “Did you lose internet connection?”

Aw, how sweet. He must have been trying to message me and was concerned when he couldn’t reach me. And then the next text came: “lost connection to sling box.”

Yes, my husband is using our home TV to watch the World Series in Berlin. And now he is in London. Watching the game. At 12:46 a.m. And we’re only in the 5th inning. Does anyone else remember the last time my husband was in London on Halloween? If he misses his flight because he was too tired to get to the airport on time–correction: if he misses his flight for any reason at all–I am leaving him alone with my children, the three-day weekend (because the school doesn’t want to deal with overtired, oversugared kids on Friday, so it’s a “professional development day”), and all the leftover candy while I go find a nice spa that serves bourbon.

I hate October.

I hate that baseball takes over.
I hate those stupid beards.
I hate that my football team sucks and not only sucks but last Sunday lured me into thoughts of “Maybe!” and then sucked the biggest suck they have ever sucked with a team I hate more than any other team in the world. So sucky.
I hate that I can’t stop eating candy corn.
I hate that I am out of candy corn.
I hate costumes.
I hate my kids going out begging for candy.
I hate handing out candy.
I hate that I decided to hand out only Halloween candy that I don’t like so I wouldn’t be tempted to eat any.
I hate that I bought all my favorites anyway.
I hate that the Twizzler/Milk Duds combo pack made the Milk Duds taste like a disgusting strawberry.
I hate that I ate those Milk Duds anyway.
I. Hate. Halloween.

If we could go straight from September to November, I’d be quite happy.

Last night, carving pumpkins (in an attempt to at least make my kids not hate October too much), my son discovered the box of Halloween decorations, things that people have given us over the years or things that I bought in hopes that I could overcome my hatred of Halloween (note: I can’t). He said, “If you’re not going to decorate for Halloween, I am!”

And he did. He put up a string of spider lights. He hung up a vampire and a ghost. The girl helped by putting up a skeleton. He found a few window decorations. He cut up a piece of cardboard to make a tombstone for one Mr. D. Ceased.

He finished and he looked at his handiwork. He said to me, “Don’t you want to say something to me?”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Like, ‘Thank you,'” he said.

“I should thank you? Thank you for what? Thank you for putting decorations for a holiday I despise? Thank you for mucking up my house with crap? Thank you for putting up all the crap that I’m going to have to clean up, take down myself, and put away next week? I should thank you?”

The boy looked at me and, wisely, turned to his sister. “Anything you want to say to me, Pie?”

To her credit, she said, “Thank you.”

Bah freakin’ humbug.

Tagged

§ 2 Responses to The Halloween Grinch"

  • Angela says:

    Oh my goodness, this post had me cracking up! My favorite, “I hate that the Twizzler/Milk Duds combo pack made the Milk Duds taste like a disgusting strawberry. I hate that I ate those Milk Duds anyway.” I’ve SO been there before 😉

    I got one:

    I hate that I brought one of my bags of candy corn into work, so I wouldn’t be tempted to eat it, only to find out, candy corn isn’t as popular there as it is in my home, and therefore, I’m STILL eating it (even though it’s stale from sitting in a candy dish for a week)!!

  • Jenny says:

    Angela, quick! Put that stale candy corn in an envelope. And mail it to me!!

What's this?

You are currently reading The Halloween Grinch at the pieces of my life.

meta

  • Who I Am

    I read, I write, I occasionally look to make sure my kids aren't playing with matches.

    My novel, MODERN GIRLS will be coming out from NAL in the spring of 2016.

    I mostly update the writing blog these days, so find me over there.

    More about me and my writing.

  • Where to Find Me

    jenny at jennyandadam.com


    Instagram

    Follow Me on Pinterest

    Goodreads

    Writing Blog: Jennifer S. Brown

    Photo Blog: jPhone Jenny

  • Archives

  • Meta