FULL MOON FEVER

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (11-05-20)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

     I'm writing this before October 31st, and I know what I'm I going to be for Halloween this year: Safe. I'll be wearing a mask, and for one glorious day, even the people who don't comprehend that there is a health risk out there, the ones who don't believe the warnings of people who are much, much smarter than they are, will be wearing one too. This may be the safest Halloween on record, since people have a tendency to a little nuts on All Hallows' Eve. Over the years there has been tomfoolery, there have been high jinks, there have been shenanigans, anything can happen happens worse on Halloween. Even one shenanigan or a stray high jink can turn dangerous if not properly executed. I once had to resort to violence myself when, ranging out of my own neighborhood, a masked thug tried to take my bag of candy. I must have been 11 or 12 years old, and as I recall, dressed as George Washington with a small billiards stick as my sword. Before the Hershey-hauling hooligan could make off with my booty, I delivered a well-placed combination shot right on cue and high-tailed it back to Valley Lane. Chappaqua was a lawless shanty town back then.

     Saturday is going to be a scaled down affair. One thing's for sure, there will be no toilet-papering of the neighbor's yard this year. No parties, no dropping in on the neighbors, none of those memorable gigs at the local roadhouse where lively ladies with purple hair danced on the bar. Next year.

     The coronavirus has done nothing to curtail the amount of crap people put out on their lawns. It's frightful. You used to see some pumpkins, some corn husks on somebody's front porch, maybe a tombstone on the lawn or two. Now it's a menagerie of overblown inflatable figures. There is a six-foot tall contraption with three large spinning eyes on the road next to mine. I have no idea what it is, but it started to hypnotize me and I had to pull my car over. One house I passed had a skeleton driving a carriage pulled by two horse skeletons, and they looked like they were on their way to someplace really nice. I don't know where skeletons go in their spare time these days, but I hope I'm having that much fun when I'm dead.

     I'll miss half the costumes. Ladies always look really good at the costume party, and guys always look really dumb. That's just the way it is. No guy has ever looked good as a chubby caveman, and no girl has ever NOT looked good dressed as a cat.

     I'm going to miss shopping for parts of my costume at the party store, one of my usual haunts before the big day. "Excuse me Miss, but do you have a skeleton?" "Yes, got one." "What aisle is it in?" "It's inside my body. I don't work here." I head over to the head section to eyeball the eyeball selection. I can't help having the feeling that I'm being watched so I move on to the weapons department. Do I want a plastic knife or a rubber knife? I can't decide witch and I don't want to rubber the wrong way so I choose plastic. Over in the spider section, the irony of paying for new spiders when I have a bunch of perfectly good ones in my garage is not lost on me.

     I'm going to miss the annual ritual of driving computer algorithms berserk with my Halloween costume online orders. One year I went as a Miss Universe contestant from another planet, and I ordered a colored wig, a lovely dress, a sash, plastic flowers, a ray gun, some white gloves and a set of antennae to come out of my head. For the next month I was bombarded with pop-up ads from computer programs trying to figure out exactly what type of consumer I was based on those purchases. A homicidal alien dude in a dress possibly trying to tune in ESPN via his head. Eclectic tastes like mine are not easily satisfied.

     I'll miss all of that, but none of this means there can't be fun. We participated in a "Harvest Hunt" last weekend, an online puzzle-filled treasure quest to benefit the Tarrytown Music Hall. We didn't come too close to winning the contest, but we exercised our brains and had some laughs on a Saturday evening. My company is having a virtual costume contest at work, which I will need to think long and hard about participating in, since I plan to still work there after the holiday is over.

     Halloween falls on a blue moon well, once in a blue moon. That's what they call the second full moon in the same month. My wife is planning an "End of the Driveway Party," at which our neighbors can stroll by and trick-or-treat at a distance of six feet and pour themselves a margarita, and the kids can grab themselves a candy bar. If it's the other way around I probably won't even notice. It's going to be cold as a witch's crypt but we'll think of a way to keep warm. I'm through missing things in the year of the coronavirus. I'm not wasting a minute of it. Fun is not where you find it, it's where you make it. I wouldn't be caught dead in a cemetery on somebody's front lawn when I can sip margaritas under a blue moon at the bottom of my driveway and watch the ghouls go by.