I'll Bet Living in a Nudist Colony Takes All the Fun Out of Halloween

At age 9, I found out Santa Claus wasn't real. I found red lipstick on the glass of milk I had left out for him that Christmas Eve to wash down the chocolate chip cookies I had left for him. The innocence of my childhood was shattered at that very moment. From that point on, I knew it was just my mother and father behind every major figure of my childhood and I made sure that they knew about it.

When Christmas rolled around again, instead of writing a letter to Santa, I addressed my mother and referred to my father as the reindeer. Every time I lost a tooth, I asked her for the money instead of putting it underneath my pillow for the Tooth Fairy. Come Easter, I was picking out every item that was to go in my basket because I knew that the whole Easter Bunny thing was garbage. As I grew older, my parents grew tired of my smart aleck nonsense. Needless to say, I became less and less enthused about the holidays. Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, even weddings, graduations, and birthdays were definitely not my cup of tea. Though there is one holiday in particular that grew on me as I became older, and that, my friends, is Halloween.

I wasn't into dressing up for Halloween in my teen years, but as soon as I turned 21, I discovered the liberty that alcohol brought when you are in a costume. I've dressed up as everything from Laura Croft to a sexy Leonidas (sans the beard, of course) and Batman (not Batgirl because she is lame). To this day, I don't fully remember exactly what happened on a Halloween weekend. However, there was a lot of photographic evidence that proves that I had a lot of fun. It is the one weekend of the year that you can let go of your inhibitions and be anyone that you want to be. Best of all, no one can take that away from you.

No one has any responsibilities on Halloween. There are no family obligations tied to this wonderful holiday. There is no Halloween dinner to be at at on time and there are no presents to be exchanged. You will never come home to find out Halloween is not real. Your parents can never suck the joy out because you will be with your friends balls deep in jello shots. No one will never be too old to celebrate this fine holiday. Anything goes on Halloween.

Think about it, instead of candy, you get booze. Instead of handing out candy, you get drunk. No one is ever too old to wear a costume. If you don't want to wear pants that day, you don't have to. Want to make out with a penguin? Do it because you know someone will be wearing a penguin suit. No one will judge you. In fact, every one is friends on Halloween. It's the law. And did I mention you can drink... a lot... in a costume? For some reason, beyond me, getting belligerent in a costume, is always better than getting drunk in civilian clothing. I think it's science.

Remeber, if you are coherent, you're not celebrating the spirit of Ol' Hallow's Eve hard enough. So, get drunk and be merry. Get crazy and have fun. I better see some vomit on the sidewalks (that isn't my own). :)

Happy Halloween, kids.

Temporary Insanity, Curable By Marriage?

Remember when cooties were arguably the most devastating and traumatic epidemic plaguing our generation? We had to get an imaginary shot at least once a day so that we remained immune to the cooties. Girls would avoid boys like the plague and vice-versa because god forbid any sort of physical contact. Hell, some of us would even go so far as to not even touch books or pencils that the opposite sex came into contact with. The lot of us survived fourth and fifth grade because of vast precautions we took. This was just the way the world worked then.

Sixth grade happens and any talk about cooties was so passe. And yes, I was the a-hole who still brought up cooties the first day of junior high and felt like a complete tool because it turned out it was cool to like boys by then. Whatever. If cooties was still a predominant thing in schools, kids wouldn't be on Maury getting paternity tests. Babies wouldn't be having babies.

All my life, I've been a little below the curve when it came to boy/girl relations. Don't get me wrong, I had crushes growing up; I was just too scared to do anything about it and too concerned about cooties... until I was about 14. (Also, it was partially because I was a late bloomer. So what? You want to fight about it?) I was the last of my friends to get my first real kiss because French kissing freaked me out. And to be honest, I'm still definitely one of the most prude when it comes to talking about the hibbidy dibbidy. (Yes, I just said hibbidy dibbidy because I'm that immature.) But let's be real for a second, is it just me or did everyone just wake up and decide to get married?

There is nothing wrong with getting married. I couldn't be more happy for anyone who is betrothed (i.e. JD), but you go on the Facebook and every other status update is about someone getting married. Someone from your graduating class adds you as a friend, but you don't recognize the name, why? Oh, it's because they're married. Your friends are going from being "In a Relationship" to "Engaged". What's this? Mary McPlainface just added new photos... of her huge ass engagement ring that is comparable in size to the former planet, Pluto! What the fudge is going on here?

A few of the girls and I just went to a wedding expo... mainly for the free booze since none of us had any intention of getting married any time soon. Walking down the street, you would never look twice at these girls, but man, the rings on their fingers were absolutely ridiculous. Makes you wonder what your not doing right, don't it? Now, I don't roll with plain girls. We're all pretty secure with ourselves and boys dig us, but none of us had that bling. I think we were secretly an itty, bitty, teeny, tiny bit depressed (especially after seeing the woofers there). But thanks to Socratic reasoning and Beyonce, I'm starting to wonder, does no one like it? Because if they did, they would've put on ring on it, right? Uh uh oh. To add insult to injury, we all came to drink and be merry, but we walked out with ring bearer pillows! (And a crazy craving for raspberry cream truffles.)

Am I missing something? Is there something in the water that I'm immune to? I mean, seriously, WTF? And did you notice all the wedding themed quizzes and advertisements on the FB that we're bombarded with? I did. (So what if I checked to see what age I'd get married or what kind of dress I'd have? I was curious. Sue me. This just in-I'm a girl and I have those inclinations. But I definitely don't think I'd act on them... just yet.) You'd think that with the success rates of marriage being 50-50, less people would be inclined to get married, but no. Looks like people get really into this little thing we call love. Yuck.

Soon enough, we'll start to notice that less and less people will want to come out to the bars on the weekend and party because they have brunch with the in-laws in the morning. They will start hanging out with other married people and talk about long term goals and college funds because they want to bust out a couple of babies. Then the lot of them will move to the suburbs, which I don't get because if I had kids, I'd want snotty little city kids like in Gossip Girl. Before you know it, we'll be getting cards with their kids on it wishing us a happy holiday. All of a sudden, tripping on acid and going to raves becomes less appealing to them because they have responsibilities. Lameskis.

I guess we all get to that age where we decide to grow up, but come on... who knew it would be so soon? I feel like cooties were our biggest issue just yesterday and now, it's what place setting goes with this flower arrangement. Woof.