Halloween draws near. This is a holiday that we Irish like to claim as our own creation, and if so this would make Halloween among Ireland’s most magnificent claims to fame, alongside The Great Famine and Jedward.
I know what you are all thinking, that your friend and humble correspondent is simply looking for popular holiday events to eviscerate (just wait until Christmas, that is all I’ll say), but All Hallows Eve is a truly special brand of atrocity in the grand pantheon of calendar catastrophes.
First things first: kids are annoying enough as they are without having to dress them up and then send them out into the night like the winged monkeys from Wizard of Oz, dressed up in goofy supernatural regalia and knocking on your front door asking for handouts. “Trick or treat?” the children will say in wide-eyed innocence, though if they are refused sweets by the occupant of said house, does anybody ever even engage the “trick” part? If so, fair play to them. Apples with razorblades, anyone?
And it’s not just the kids who are at it. Adults take this opportunity to bust out of boring attire for one day of the year and many have a penchant for, shall we say, overdoing it? Let’s be fair here. Dressing up is not fun. If it was so great, you would have done it every day for the rest of the year. What is that you’re dressed up as tonight? Oh, a sexy schoolgirl? Wow, I did not see that one coming. Sometimes one gets the unmistakable impression that for some people, Halloween is more of an excuse to dress down than dress up.
We should not forget to give an honourable mention to all of the zombies, vampires, schoolgirls and the like who go out on the proverbial lash every Halloween night, managing to make Dublin’s fair city literally resemble a highly-touted invasion of the undead.
Our wonderful city is transformed from a first-world epicentre of activity and commerce into a vision too lurid to even warrant inclusion in a John Carpenter movie, replete with all the vomit, vitriol and violence one could hope to see.
Having said that, such apocalyptic carnage does have its plus side, as it is not too unfamiliar a sight to see dressed-up couples arguing or crying over their personal problems. I am not one who takes pleasure in another person’s pain (*ahem*), but there is something rather humourous about a real-life dumping scene where Bob the Builder leaves in tears after being jilted by Poison Ivy.
Halloween is dead, my friends. Whatever happened to all the homemade treats? The elaborate pranks? Even pumpkins have lost their charm as many of them are pre… pumpkified? And to top all of these misdemeanours, I never once got to meet the real Candyman or even be threatened with the prospect of being haunted by a decent ghost. I was lied to for all of those years. Wake up, kids. Wake up before it’s too late!
By Cranky Craig Kinsella