October really should be my favorite month. After all, I was born during it. It usually has most of the best weather of the year in New England – the beginning of autumn. It’s not too cold, not too warm. It usually contains more than a few days packed full of dry, crisp air and covered and smothered by crystal-clear, bright blue skies. And all of it is quite nicely accented with treeloads of falling leaves in a whole host of blazing shades.
From the beginning of the month, it’s a little piece of heaven on Earth around here. But then it all goes to hell on the last day … Halloween.
I’m not talking about the night full of roaming hordes of children dressed as Scooby Doo or Dora the Explorer or one of the three Ninja Turtles knocking at my door, looking for free candy in compensation for enduring the public humiliation of walking around dressed as Scooby Doo, Dora the Explorer or one of three Ninja Turtles.
I’m not even bothered by the other youthful gangs – the slightly older but far dumber kids who can’t find their butts with a piece of toilet paper but despite that handicap, still somehow manage to hang it from every single limb and twig of the tree in my front yard.
No, I’m talking about a large herd of supposedly mature, wiser people out there. They don’t put on silly costumes. They don’t waste expensive eggs by throwing them against my vinyl siding.
No, they’re so far beyond that kind of silliness. Of course, because they’re adults. Adults don’t make fools of themselves.
They make fools of their dogs.
Why anyone would look at the perfectly normal furry canine face of their pooch and see Yoda looking back at them is beyond me. Or an alligator. Or even more insane, an alligator eating their dog.
This is not what Darwin had in mind when he came up with the concept of natural selection.
Seriously … what is wrong with you, people?
I’m not asking you that question, by the way. That’s your dog speaking.
Well, they may not be saying that to you in words. But you damn well know they’re saying it to you. All you have to do is look at their eyes, gazing up at you in astonished wounded wonderment as you tie that sombrero to their heads. Look at their body language, as they droop in shame and embarrassment when they realize you really are expecting them to go outside wearing that fake hot dog roll.
You’re just lucky you’re not looking at their snarling, slobber-dripping teeth, and realizing that, even wearing stupid cardboard “Tin Man” panels, Fluffy still can chase you down, disembowel you, and eat your ears off.
So, for your own good, and possibly to save your miserable misguided lives, here’s my version of Halloween pet costume aversion therapy for you and your kind. Print these pictures out and tape them, facing you, to your foreheads. And for the next 18 days wear them and stare at them.
Maybe, just maybe … there’s hope for you. Otherwise, I hope you’re at least decent fodder for Fifi.
Really … REALLY? Piss on you and your Raggedy-Ass.
You are sooo fortunate that this knife is not whole and wooden.
When you take me out of this thing, I’m plunging these tusks into you.
Wrong, wrong, wrong … in so many ways, WRONG.
There, that should do it. But, if you don’t take this therapy nor heed this warning, well … good luck to you, though I don’t really mean it.
And when you get up in the middle of the night, stumble down the hall in the pitch-black darkness heading to the bathroom, and just in front of the door your bare foot steps down and sinks into a heaping, steaming, fragrant pile of something far-too-horribly-organic-to-imagine …
You deserve it.
