So this is Halloween. I love Halloween. Well, mostly. Kinda. Y’know.
There are two things to do at Halloween. The first is my favorite: scare children. I love Halloween because you can scare children and it’s perfectly okay. No one minds. Mostly. Kinda. Y’know.
So Halloween will come. I have the kids all programmed. I play spooky music on the porch. Sometimes, I run the fog machine, but that thing is mostly lame, so that isn’t always the case. Then I put out one of those bowls that has a hand sticking out and when someone reaches inside, it grabs you. It’s scary and fun. I love it.
Sometimes I like to dress scary, too. Or pretend to be a corpse and when the kid comes near I pop up and scream “Boo!” or “Join us in our unholy resting place.” Something creepy like that. Or I just stare at the kids while pulling the cord to start my chainsaw. Good times. Anything to help children learn a valuable lesson: the guy down the street hates children…I mean…don’t take candy from strangers. With chainsaws.
The other part of Halloween, the part I don’t like particularly, is the whole fighting the forces of evil angle. That gets mighty tiresome. You’d think coming up against a formidable opponent like the Captain here, they’d have had their fill. But, noooooo. They keep coming back for more. Suffering fools.
Now, I don’t want to say I’m attacked by monsters frequently. I don’t want to, but I think it is accurate. I mean, I’ve been attacked four times already. Four seems fairly frequent to me. If someone has been attacked five times, I’ll happily set aside my whole frequently attacked by monsters mantelpiece to ya, pal. You can have the plaque, the trophy, the whole durn thing.
Each time I’ve been attacked by a monster it’s been right in the heart of my birthday season. (My birthday is October 25th. Make checks payable to “Tim Kretschmann Monster Fighting Fund,” please.) Some people actually don’t know the idea of birthday seasons. These people are morons. Let me explain.
Your birthday season encompasses the time from your immediate family member’s nearest birthday until your birthday. During this “season” all other immediate family members must follow your every command. This is part of being the “birthday boy.” Obviously, some of us get screwed. My dad is the birthday before me but it is on September 23. My brother is after me in May sometime (he always tells me when it is coming up–why should I remember it? Kidding-May 26th. I think.) So clearly, you can see I am screwed. I only get one month. However, there is an odd ruling on this. Since my brother has nearly half a frigging year, it is not FAIR! Luckily the ruling states that since I’m the first born and my birthday lands on a 25th (this is key), my rule is absolute during its duration. Basically, this means I can declare his entire birthday season as null and void.
Hah!
Of course, this upsets the ancient ones and they send merchants of death to dispatch me which leads us to the whole monster attack thing. And you thought I forgot!
The first time I was attacked, I was in a gym exercising. So, you know, I was traumatized. And thus, I don’t do this anymore.
The second time I was eating some vegetables. Sad how these monsters attack my very lifestyle.
I’d like to say the next time I was attacked I was about to make love, but I want the story to sound plausible. Come to think of it, maybe this is why I keep getting attacked. They always come after the virgin. Somebody–please–save me.
Well, had to try.
This leads me to another thing…lousy law enforcement here. A number of law enforcement types read these columns and they need to know–I’ve yet to be saved from a Soul-Sucking Thaddeus Gorilla Monster from a member of law enforcement. C’mon, guys. You got to get on this. I don’t think you are taking the whole Gorilla Monster threat as seriously as you could. I would like to suggest a task force to fight this. And school uniforms. Get on it.
So this last time, this beast comes at me with its massive, blood drenched claws. Now, these were CLAWS not PAWS. Paws come on pets. It’s part of the alliteration from initial consonant sounds. Which means claws generally come from canaries. (Actually, for a true alliteration, the “cl-” sound should be repeated, but I couldn’t think of anything PG-13, so you are stuck with a canary clawed gorilla monster.)
It inched toward me reading the poetry of e.e.cummings, an obvious sadist. I, luckily, had an ancient amulet of Escorial and spoke the magic words, “Knowing is half the battle” (Yes, it’s a really obscure pop culture reference–we’ll see who gets it) which caused a cataclysmic bolt of energy as usually happens in this kind of situation.
The clean up was horrendous. Thank goodness from the trunk monkey.
Now some of ya’s are thinking, “No fair. Tim didn’t get injured. And this story isn’t even true. There is no such thing as monsters.”
Well, pish-posh. It was a real monster. And blonde, too. I’ll show you right where she pulled my heart out and stepped on it, if ya want.
And trust me, there were other “c” words to go with the claws, but I’m a gentleman.
Wishing you all a Happy Halloween and successful battles against monsters of all kinds,
Captain Catastrophe