Quirky Ghouls

I don’t know about you, but run-of-the-mill skeletons and every day witches don’t do much for me. They have become so banal they've lost their mojo. Not scary.

As you prepare for Halloween, ask yourself- do I want to be just another blood-dripping-from-an-arrow-in-the-head walking dead? I don’t.

Time was when this holiday was an emotional exorcism, making the English speaking world shiver. Waking up from the nightmare the next day, November first All Saints Day, one felt their psyche cleansed of the ghouls. I'm not making fun, nor claiming scholarship. This is not about origins or deep meaning, but about what the celebration of ghastly ghosts has become.

Maybe that’s the point. Ghouls are no longer ghastly, and everyday life is filled with ultimately more terrifying things. Always was.

A few not-so-fun “fun-facts” to usher us through this week:

*Victorian guidebooks advised the women to put pins in their mouths to avoid being kissed in the dark when trains went through tunnels. SCARY.

** A pumping human heart can squirt blood a distance of thirty feet. Just imagine what mess a hole in the heart would make. Yuck.

***99% of all the species that have ever lived are now extinct. Memento Mori. That really does it for me.

Candy’s always good.

Happy Halloween!