Halloween, The Great Equalizer

Well, dear readers, Halloween is here once again. It’s the time of year that apparently allows nice girls to dress like prostitutes and all the sugar-obsessed ADD kids run from door to door dressed up as this year’s version of the Power Ranger. As I pondered on the strange holiday that we call Halloween, I was blessed with a whole new perspective on its purpose. Halloween is the great equalizer among children. Our nation is full of little fatty-fats who waddle to school, hate recess because it means they have to walk outside to play Gameboy, and sweat when they eat. The heat generated by the friction between their legs when they wear corduroys could power a small city and may also be responsible for the fires in California.

As you well know, the highlight of every kid’s Halloween experience is trick-or-treating. This is where the epiphany took place. When you enter any public school, you will notice that there is a fairly obvious distinction between your average kid and the kids with obese parents. As a child, I always played sports and was fairly active. When the last day in October rolled around, I remember running as fast as my little legs would carry me so as to get as much candy for myself to gorge upon as possible. Some years, I would come home with pounds and pounds of candy. I would sit on my floor for hours, separating the candy into piles and categories. I would have a Hershey’s pile, a Reeses pile and then a pile of the nasty candy that I would try to trade away to my younger, naive siblings who, for some reason always believed that quantity was better than quality (suckers). The crappy candy pile included (but was not limited to) the orange, peanut shaped marshmallows, anything with black licorice or raisins, generic brand suckers, any and all fruit, toothbrushes and just about anything that was made at home. I never stopped, however, to consider the success of the fat kids. Logically, Halloween is every fat kid’s favorite holiday. It’s also very likely that it’s the only day of the year that these kids have to physically exert themselves in any way for sugar. I’m sure that after about half a block, most are so tuckered out that they want to turn around and head back. The will to stock up on sweets carries them forward around the rest of the block, as they sweat mayonnaise and cooking oil. It is very unlikely, however, that they will ever accrue enough sugary comestibles to equal the normal children. The exercise (if it can be called exercise) they get from the trick-or-treating may be somewhat suitable to help compensate for the future sugar intake. On the other hand, all the normal kids who ran for hours from door to door with their pillowcases slung over their shoulders (sometimes hitting the good houses twice) have close to double the candy which, technically, should help cancel out any of the benefits from their cardiovascular round-the-block workout. All in all, Halloween is for making normal kids fat and fat kids fatter. What a great nation we belong to.

Enjoy this video about Halloween and kids by none other than Mr. Seinfeld himself.

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For My Mom

Dearest Mother,
This is for you. Thank you for always worrying. I love you.

Is it just me, or does this mean that all moms are the same?

4 comments.

Friends?

The following post is a rant, if you’re not in the mood to hear me vent a little, just don’t read this…

Hey you! Yeah you! You so-called ‘friend’… why you gotta suck? Why do you tell me one thing and then do another? I know you “want to hang out.” I know, “It’s been a long time, and we need to catch up.” At least, that’s what I hear you sayin’. Your actions, on the other hand, scream out an entirely different story. A story that goes something like this…

*cool wavy flashback effect*

Once upon a time, there was a boy. The boy had friends. He loved to run and play. He loved to flirt with girls and loved his family. One day, the boy woke up from his good night’s rest to the sun shining in the window. He looked at his clock and noticed that it was 11:00 in the morning!
“Eleven o’clock!” shouted the boy. “I was supposed to be at school hours ago.”
The boy bolted out of bed in a flustered state. “Mom!” he yelled as he ran down the stairs. He rounded the corner into the family room to find his mom folding laundry. “Mom! I’m late for school! You said you’d wake me up. I have a test today!”
“Oh, that’s right.” Mom said, “I guess I was just busy or something came up or something.”
“What?? You’re doing laundry! You hate laundry! Is that what came up?”
“Um, yeah…” replied Mom.
The boy ran back up the stairs to his room, threw on his clothes and scooted to school as fast as his legs would carry him. He made it to school just in time for lunch. He walked into the cafeteria and spotted his best friend. He walked up to his friend in line and began to tell him about how crazy his Mom had been acting. “Hey, will you save my spot in line while I go grab my lunch money out of my locker?”
“Sure,” the friend said. “Just hurry back!”
The boy sprinted to his locker, grabbed his money, ran back to the line only to find that his friend was no longer there. He was off sitting with a table full of friends. The boy approached his friend, “What happened!? Where did you go?”
“Oh, yeah… sorry, I cut in line with Sally. I was hungry. I’ll save you a spot at the table though.”
“Ok,” said the boy as he ran back to the lunch line.
After making it through the line, he looked up to find the table where his friend once sat to be empty. His day continued in this fashion. His ride home left without him, his math study group changed locations without letting him know, his family moved to a new state, his girlfriend canceled their 6 month anniversary date at the last minute, and his dog changed his name from Cosa to Barfy.

If I were that boy, I would just rather people fess up to their crap rather than trying to make excuses for it. Basically, don’t call me your friend if you’re just going to feed me full-o-crap sammiches covered in lame-sauce. Stop sucking.

2 comments.

Bald

A few years back when I was on my two-year religious sabbatical, my good friend Bot and I decided to shave our legs. This may sound like a strange thing to do, especially if you know the family I am from. My mother used to threaten me in high school, when it was popular for athletes to shave their legs, that if I were to follow the trend, I would quickly find myself without a house to live in. In this case, it was different. We weren’t following a stupid fad… and we weren’t living at home. Also, it was in the middle of the blazing summer, and we were wearing dark slacks and collared shirts, and we walked all day every day. After hacking through the forest of thick scraggly hair and cleaning up the many cuts left from our plastic BIC disposable razors, we were pleased to find that not having a home-grown sweater on our legs made our days about ten degrees cooler! It was incredible. Since then, however, I have let the hair grow back and lived with the irritating, extra-long leg stubble. (Fear not, this story has a point.)

For those of you who haven’t heard, I made the BYU Swing team. I was convinced this week by some of my teammates that I should accompany them to a national swing exchange in Las Vegas. Well, I succumbed to the peer pressure, and today I’m leaving. As I was packing, I was advised by one of my fellow dancers to bring several extra shirts, because apparently I will be sweating like a pig. (She must have danced with me enough to know that I sweat profusely… gross… I’m sorry Melissa.) I then reflected on the aforementioned story regarding shaved legs. As I was getting ready for the day this morning, I realized that I just might have more hair on my torso than I have on my head. I figured having an extra sweater on my body might just contribute, in a small amount, to the quantity of sweat I produce. Well, after a 20 minute session with the back hair trimmers my mom gave me for Christmas last year, I am proud to say that I aspire to experience a weekend ten degrees cooler than I would have otherwise. Also, I discovered that when there is no hair on my chest, I can actually see the abs I’ve been working so hard at resurrecting from their deep slumber! Talk about a double bonus! I never thought balding could be so fun.

You can expect me to post some pictures from the swing exchange and, if you’re lucky, some pictures of my bald chest.

1 comment.