Darkness there and nothing more

Holy carp! Did I just hear that today is November? And just like that, all good things have come to a dismal end. Halloween is over, baseball is ALMOST over and the white tomb of winter yawns before us. You’ll forgive me if I eat all my Halloween candy in one sitting and slip into seasonal depression. Except for those individually wrapped Fig Newtons. Those are just awful.

A hideous throng rush out forever

But at least we have Daylight Wasting Time coming up. Set the clocks ahead and wait for darkness at 3 p.m. How does that make you feel? Want some of my candy?

Very dreadfully nervous

In the Shaw’s parking lot the other day, as I was pulling on my motorcycle helmet and preparing to ride off, I became disturbed by an ugly person who seemed to be staring at me intently from a nearby car. Very unnerving. To resolve the issue, I walked over to the car and introduced myself. Turns out the ugly person was actually a schnauzer. Quite a friendly fellow, too. I regret my earlier assumptions. In my defense, I’d eaten a carp-ton of candy corn that day.

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In pace requiescat!

The self-described Crazy French Lady stopped by the other night to deliver a gift. I opened the box expecting something perfectly ordinary: some nice banana bread, perhaps. Maybe a T-shirt with a funny logo. Instead, what I found at the bottom of all that tissue paper was the severed head of a farm animal denuded of its flesh! To put it in less dramatic terms, it was one of those steer skulls you see hanging from ranch fences all over the Midwest. A beautiful specimen, cleaned and waxed, with black staring eyes and a regal snout. Come visit me in the newsroom some day if you want to pet it.

My tantalized spirit here blandly reposes

Which is to say that I’m off on my usual Halloween vacation this week. Being on vacation is swell and all, but you people have a way of leaving tantalizing messages on my phone when I’m not there to answer; messages that absolutely will not be useful by the time I get back. “Hey, Mike. You’ve got to see this thing I found floating in the canal. If you come down right now, you might be able to catch it before it sinks. I think it’s still alive! Three of its eyes are blinking!” And that’s just one example. Please, I implore you. No fun stuff while I’m away.

The blood bedewed halls of their revel

Are you starting to get the feeling that I’m just throwing Poe lines out there and making stuff up to fill space around them? Because that’s totally what I’m doing. My shame is great.

The ghoul-haunted woodland of Weird

Here is a short list of Halloween candy I’ll take if you don’t want it. Zagnut, those little Hershey bars, Zots, Smarties (but don’t you DARE try to pass them off as SweeTARTS), Atomic Fireballs (the candy, not that other thing), Pez, Starburst, Sour Patch Kids, Swedish Fish (especially the unwrapped kind that have been floating around in the bottom of your purse for six months), Bazooka Gum, those little boxes of Junior Mints, Pop Rocks (they killed Mikey, you know), Sugar Daddy (which sounds dirty, now that I write it out like that), Candy Buttons, Squirrel Nut Zippers (also sounds dirty), Mary Janes (the candy, not the marijuana), root beer barrels, jawbreakers, fudgies and more Zots, because I really like those. Just hand over the candy, my friend, and no one gets hurt.


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