Your costume's gay!

Notice anything different lately? You would if you owned a shitty strip mall with a long-standing vacancy.

You can be sure that October 31st is fast approaching because everywhere you turn guys named Fish or Fat Vance with handle-bar mustaches and questionable ethics, are scampering up rickety step-ladders and hanging big, bright day-glo orange banners that read simply "HALLOWEEN."

They are being hung with care over the dirty, dingy remnant outlines of defunct Bo Rics and Chuck E Cheese's from Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine. Wherever people trick-or-treat, these wonderous shops exist. And I love it!
Need some fake blood? They have it in kegs.

Looking for a $12 plastic pitchfork that was made by some 7 year old in Laos for 46 cents? You're welcome.
What if you're one of those "super fun" girls who wants a midriff-bearing "naughty angel" costume so that people will act like they enjoy your company for a few hours before you have drunken, un-protected missionary at the Hampton Inn? Aisle 5 has three different designs for you, lucky lady... and select locations have herpes cream up at the counter.

My purchases will be almost exclusively decorative. Spiders, bats, fake webs, that type of shit. I'm just not a costume guy. But that does not make the experience any less special to me. It's truly one of my favorite activities. I will go to multiple 'Halloween Outlets' this year and I am not ashamed. Wandering aimlessly down those musty aisles, filling a hand-basket with mostly useless trinkets that will sit on my bookshelf or, girlfriend willing, the coffee table for one glorious month before being begrudgingly deposited in the trash.

BUT... for that month, I will walk amongst the dead!
I will use 3 dollar wands to put curses on unknowing victims!
I will be an agent of darkness who yearns for the unleashing of the beast of Hades, or Bezlebub to you filthy mortals. Your very worst nightmares will come to fruition, pigs.
And on that day... oh, that fucking day! Torrents of the blood of the innocents will fill the streets and drown the gurgling scum who foolishly refuse to bow in the presence of Azrael!
Day will turn to night, ball lickers!

And I will...I PROMISE YOU, I WILL... buy a CD single of 'The Monster Mash' and I will turn it up to 4 on ALL HALLOWS EVE!