There is a large group of people back home in Western New York who upon reading the title of today's blog will become very alarmed, and assume that Misplaced has been brainwashed, or kidnapped by alien pod people and replaced with some sort of mindless drone.
Nope.
It's me.
I can't believe it myself, but for the first time in my adult life, I'm not feeling Halloween, a holiday that I look forward to more than Christmas. For those on the East Coast who are in denial at this revelation, sit down and I'll say it again:
I am not feeling Halloween this year.
Three weeks ago, they had pumpkins at the Kingfield Farmer's Market, and I immediately bought one, figuring that I would do my normal two practice carvings on it (one on each side), and then purchase four or five more over the next week or two, carve them into different frightening visages, and set them along my fence on Halloween night, like I used to do back home.
For three weeks, that pumpkin sat in my kitchen.
Untouched.
Mocking me.
Finally, last night, after a lengthy conversation with one of the neighbors about everything under the sun except Halloween I went into the kitchen to get a beer and noticed the pumpkin sitting on the counter. I stared at it for a moment and briefly considered carrying it outside and tossing it into the trash.
I took a sip of the beer I was holding, set it down to pick up the pumpkin, and noticed the label. It's a Unibroue product called "La Fin Du Monde", and I chuckled to myself.
La Fin Du Monde means "The End Of The World" in French.
If Misplaced gives up on Halloween, it could only be construed as a sign that the end of the world is truly upon us.
Not wanting to be responsible for the billions of deaths that would surely occur as a result of the world ending, I figured that I'd better get myself into Halloween mode pretty quick.
Cthulu is supposed to be the destroyer of worlds, NOT Misplaced. (Sorry, had to throw in the H.P. Lovecraft reference for one of my newer readers)
I dug out my plastic pumpkin carving tool, X-Acto knife and sat down in front of my trusty laptop to search for the nastiest-looking, most evil, demonic stencil I could find. I was going to carve the most frightening Jack O' Lantern the world had ever seen. Upon sighting it's hideous visage on Halloween Night, children would flee in terror, their parents would call for an exorcist, a coalition of neighbors would gather to knock on my door and insist that I remove my creation from public view, as surely it could only be the work of Satan.
I searched for close to an hour, and couldn't find anything that was evil enough.
Instead, I came across a rather benign (by comparison) stencil of three howling wolves in silhouette against a full moon. Realizing that it was nearly midnight I decided that it would have to do, I printed it and got to work. Forty-five minutes later I was done. I cut a candle down to size, placed it inside, lit it, turned off all the lights, and reached for my camera. The result is visible above.
It's probably the best Jack O' Lantern that I have ever carved, and I'm STILL not feeling Halloween. I'm not even handing out candy this year. I'm going to leave the outside lights off and let the dogs scare away anyone that knocks on the door with their barking.
I used to love Halloween. I don't know what happened.
Pretty fucking cool pumpkin though.
See you tomorrow.
Rockin' pumpkin bro!
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