I Hate Halloween

I'm being forced to attend a Halloween party this year and I am a little bit on the unimpressed side. I do not like Halloween. I do not like costumes. I do not like free poisoned candy. I do not like fake blood and organs served on platters.
I don't know when I first discovered my dislike for this day. Maybe I had some bad candy once. Maybe someone chased me with a chainsaw while I was out trick or treating (oh, wait, that DID happen. Every year) or maybe I'm just kind of a wimp (true.) Whatever it is, I don't like Halloween, and I'm quite positive that I never will like it.

Costume Stress
I have very powerful memories of how stressed out I would get about choosing my costume as a kid. What if the other kids thought it was stupid? Picking a costume is a BIG DEAL people! Anyway, despite this stress I believe I usually changed what I wanted to be on the day of Halloween and my mom as forced to deal with helping me pick out a new one. And the thing I finally decided on was usually unbelievably lame. Or that's how I remember it anyway. (Except for when I was a Power Ranger. That was sweet.)

Mask Smell
I don't know if this is actually a real thing or if I've just invented it in my head, but do you notice how disgusting Halloween masks smell? Even new ones, they're all plastic-y and disgusting. But it's the old ones that are the worst. Like, the one that your dad wore to the Halloween dance when he was in grade 10 and for some reason decided to keep. (Or, in my household, the terrifying Brian Mulroney mask that I really hope has seen it's last days.)

It's Scary!
I'm all for scary story reading and I love writing creepy tales, but something about Halloween decorations creeps me right out. I guess I prefer to imagine the scary stuff in my head, instead of having to look at it. That being said...

Halloween movies that aren't scary but it makes me anxious even thinking about them:
- Beetlejuice
- The Addams Family
- Edward Scissorhands
- When Good Ghouls Go Bad (Or really any R.L. Stine film/the Goosebumps TV show. I loved the books though.)

Something about these films just makes my insides crawl around all funny. They're all movies that I first saw when I was little, and probably around the same time. I don't know if there was a life event happening at the time that made my memory of these bad or something, but whatever it was, these movies are ruined for me. I can't do scary movies in general. When I'm forced to watch them I'm quite positive that I barely come out alive. Although I want to know the twists and stuff, I just can't deal with the scary. I'm just not into that kind of entertainment.

Let's get all technical here for a sec. Maybe I'll actually teach you something for once. There are a lot of studies that have been done about sensation seeking (i.e. watching scary movies, roller coasters, etc.) Most of them claim that there are various genetic things going on that make someone interested in sensation seeking or not. (i.e. dopamine levels and personality traits like introversion/extraversion.) I strongly believe that I am genetically hardwired to love sitting at home and typing away on my laptop, scoffing at that dude who just jumped from the edge of space. (If you want me to go into any more details I'd gladly mail you a copy of my psychology textbooks for a small fee of $400.)

Okay, now that we've learned something (that's scary) we can bring this thing to a close. I just wanted to let you all know that for Halloween this year, I'm being cotton candy, the most least scary thing in the whole wide world. And I'm going to go around and spread my non-scary cheer everywhere I go.