This week could be last taste of summer: shorts and t-shirts abounded and I even saw a few girls rockin’ miniskirts. (A few were shivering, but that’s beside the point.) These are the best days of the fall semester, when it’s beautiful out but the air is crisp. It’s the right time to go apple picking, but cold enough that hot cocoa and maybe even 5-point soup at Red & Black are on the agenda. (Note: Though we are now a few days past apple picking season—I found this out on Monday when I spent 40 minutes roaming through the orchards and left with only six somewhat delectable apples and the terrifying sight of a dead crow tied to a post emblazoned on my mind for Halloweens to come. What purpose did this crow serve? I know not.)
Luckily, this Halloween the nice weather held out and prevented countless frantic last-minute costume changes from “slutty Fill-In-The-Blanks” as Calvin Cato coined them to more warmly dressed but still sexy Eskimos. Personally, I am sad that Halloween is over, because that means I will have to wait another year for such seasonal activities as haunted houses, free candy, and the Eclectic Halloween Party. As someone pointed out to me today, I’ve been wondering if this Halloween party was really as good as I’ve heard it has been in the past. Or really, if it was worth spending all that time and energy trying to sneak in and attempting to fashion a rope to throw over the railing of the balcony and climb my way into Halloween bliss. To Eclectic’s credit, I was unsuccessful. So I went home and ate some of the aforementioned free candy, which was pretty fun too, just more fattening and less social.
But I read a disturbing statistic today in the newspaper today: apparently this year there was an alarming decrease in the number of haunted houses in the U.S., with only 600 professional events left. I’ve only attended one haunted house myself, a school-run production in an old mansion that consisted of cold spaghetti “brains,” peeled grape “eyeballs,” and other standard fare. Creepy music and eerie howls played in the background, which terrified the kindergartners in front of me. I was in 6th grade at the time, but still kind of scared. Ok, really scared. How was I supposed to know that the mummy would pop out of the cardboard coffin and that he was actually my friend’s dad? That mummy knew my name!
But really, what is going on? Has real life become so scary that we no longer enjoy the threat of mummies, ghosts, and blood-covered murderers standing in darkly lit hallways and hiding behind doors? Come on, people. Where is your sense of adventure? I didn’t watch Carrie parts 1 and 2, all three Scream movies, and part of The Ring before it got too scary for nothing. America loves being scared! Why do you think we elected George W. Bush? I bet a lot of people would much sooner wander through a haunted house than contemplate the war on terrorism or weapons of mass destruction, but apparently those proved scarier and more appealing, hence four more years.
All of this got me thinking about what a haunted house would look like here at Wesleyan: A roomful of extremely conservative Republicans and a plate of sliced ham? Or perhaps Crossfire’s Tucker Carlson wearing a black and orange bowtie and chasing after Michael Moore with a chainsaw? I don’t really know. We could stage it in the empty field on William and High streets, next to the power plant, which is already pretty creepy. And the sirens of Middletown already provide a great soundtrack! After that, all we need are some theater majors and some red paint…get ready for next year!
Alas, all the Halloween fun is over for this year. November means short days, cold weather, and luckily, Thanksgiving. Possibly snow, ice, and in some cases, final paper topic assignments. Ew. But I am kind of excited about the snow, in theory. Foss Hill doesn’t provide that exciting an elevation, but I’m sure if you grabbed a tray from MoCon you could pick up a little momentum. Also, I envision building a pretty freakin’ awesome igloo on the creepy haunted house field. Though I am not looking forward to walking to class knee-deep in slush, let alone trying to get all the way to Warren Street for a party. And the RIDE? There is no way that I am going to wait for it on the corner for 20 minutes. I want the old RIDE back! Tramping around in the white snow in heels, looking for a white van to drive me home at 3 a.m. does not sound like my idea of fun. I may switch to mukluks, but I will still miss the old RIDE. Perhaps I will bide the 20 minutes complaining in my igloo.
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