Sunday, October 08, 2006

Mission Halloween

"It's not here!" Karen sighed. "We'll have to try another place."

After a distressing time at the mall, we were on a mission. We were on a mission to find Halloween decorations. I'd already spent a few hours searching for khaki pants and bras. I was in tears when I finally found one bra that worked. Now, we were off to find Halloween decorations. We reconvened at our meeting spot and set off in one vehicle.

This time, we found the Halloween store.

"Look Karen!" I exclaimed. "You can wear this for Halloween!" I shoved a package of a skimpy costume at her.

"And I can wear this!" I exclaimed, grabbing a costume with a bit more coverage. Karen rolled her eyes and gave me that look. The Oh- lord- The Blonde Duck- is- being- goofy- again look.

"Where are the decorations!" I exclaimed, looking around. "I don't see any!"

"They just have those." Karen pointed to some bloody rubber rats and animatron creatures that howled, shrieked and squirted blood. I frowned.

"Well for a Halloween store, they should have more decorations," I scoffed. "Geez. Onto Hobby Lobby!"

Hobby Lobby only threw me into a greater pit of despair. Cluttering the aisles was a 40 year old school teacher's dream: cutsey scarecrows, wooden signs with painted fruit and vegetables and anything ever seen in a small town antique shop. None of it was Halloween. It was all fall.

I looked at Karen. She seemed resigned. "I guess we can try Wal-Mart," she said.

Leave it to good ol' Wal-Mart to be our salvation! I went nuts. I grabbed all sorts of skeletons, spiders and lights. I webt down the aisles, pulling various things into my buggy. After I had exhausted the quality decorations, I scampered off to a corner of an aisle to evaluate my goods.

It wasn't until then I realized Karen was standing quietly. She was not amused by the cheap mounds of badly painted plastic. Instead, she looked utterly bored.

"You didn't get anything!" I gawked.

"No," she said, looking around. "I don't see anything I like."

"How can you not see anything you like?" I squealed. "They have plastic skeletons and spiders for a dollar. And cobwebs! Look at him!" I thrust a foam hanging Frankenstien with bulging eyes and a crooked smile in her face. "How cute is that?"

She still wasn't amused.

By the time I got home, I was delighted. I immediately placed stickers on the glass doors and set about to making waffles. Such a delightful Halloween celebration had to be celebrated with waffles.

Once dark hit, we scampered outside giddily. We carefully draped cobwebs in the trees. Ben dismantled a wire hanger and created stakes that we duck taped to our Styrofoam tombstones. But our greatest achievement was not the hanging skeleton or the cobwebs. It was the four creatures that came with small bulbs and plastic stakes. We drove them into the ground, perservering even as we were attacked by fire ants. When we plugged them in triumphantly, we had a confused mummy, a sneaky witch, a scary Frankenstien and a happy ghost.

We now had the best decorations on the street, thanks to Karen and me. It's even better than the 6 ft inflatable mummy across the street.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

And the tradition lives on. Good for you, the kids will love it. Mom

Anonymous said...

And let's not forget our mortal enemies the FIRE ANTS that chose to grace us with their unwanted presence. I've decided to consider the ant bites my battle scars...