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Sunday, November 2, 2008

When is scary too much?

My daughter and I were walking with a group of friends on Halloween around the hood. We somehow ended up on the other side of our subdivision (I think that somehow was the kids following the blinking lights from one shiny house to another with out slowing enough for us to catch or stop them).

As we were walking across one street, I heard this crazy noise. It sounded like metal being drug behind a car. Like, maybe a piece of a car was dragging. It got louder and louder.

Then, I saw him.

There was some guy dressed up as what had to be the best/scariest Michael Myers ever outside of a movie house. The man looked scary. To me. A grown woman who likes vampires and used to be goth. He was scary. Anyway, he was dragging a shovel behind him. He walked down the road, not the sidewalk, dragging it, looking straight ahead, like he didn't even notice the people going by. Then, when he got close enough to a group, he would suddenly jump and scream at them. I am telling you that man was freaky.

When he did that to our group, one of the moms jumped about 3 feet backwards and nearly peed on herself. Three of the girls started crying. One got over it. One had to stay with her dad after that. One couldn't stop crying. Scary. He jumped at another group and a little girl literally threw her bucket of candy at him and ran. (As an aside, I was proud of her. If this had been a horror movie, she would have made it because she actually did the right thing!) She didn't get far before an adult made her stop. The man in the mask did take it off, and go over and help her pick it all up. He waited until he got a little further away before from that girl before he put the shovel back down, and started all over again.

As my daughter and I walked toward our house, I heard people start screaming behind us, before I heard the shovel. She heard it and took off. She wanted to get home before he could get near us again. Now, She knew he was fake. She knew it was a man. I think she enjoyed the drama more than she was really scared when she ran home.

In hindsight, some of what was transpiring around him was funny. The mom that nearly peed on herself. That was funny. The little girl who threw her candy, could have been funny, if she hadn't been so scared. Though, she probably would laugh if anyone had caught that on camera and they had won 10,000, but I digress.

The thing is, he was genuinely scaring people. Is that wrong, though? Isn't that what Halloween is about? At what point in time do you cross the line from being an enthusiast to an asshole?

I'm not sure if this guy crossed the line. I think he walked it. If he hadn't helped the little girl pick up her candy, he would have been way over it. Provided there are no nightmares, for me or my daughter, that arise from his escapade, I will forgive him.

I think this may be one of those things that live with her, in a good, memorable way. I hope she never forgets what an exciting night she spent with friends, getting candy, running, screaming like crazy and running from a madman in a mask, with a shovel. I hope that in years to come, she tells her own kids the story, and that they won't get nightmares from it either.

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