When else is it cool to gut a fruit and let it rot on the porch?

I have sort of a three-month ritual required to get me in a festive mood for Christmas. In October, as Halloween nears, I have to get a pumpkin and carve it. If I don’t it throws the whole month off and I can’t get excited about Thanksgiving. And if I can’t get excited about Thanksgiving, Christmas is screwed. It’s a delicate process, but I’m trying to develop my own holiday customs.

Anyway, I haven’t secured a pumpkin yet, but I will this week. I’ve been doing other decorating, however. I picked up some cheap purple lights at Wal-Mart, along with some cool jelly blood that you stick to the top of your window to make it look like blood is seeping through. You can even get the blood in patterns that spell out things. I got “stay out,” for no other reason than to taunt and frighten the neighbor kids.

So tonight, to fill the gap in the big front windows, I painted a couple of corny cartoony skulls on posterboard, which actually turned out pretty well. They’ll probably just fade in the sunlight, but I can do occasional touchups.

Squint and maybe it won’t be so blurry.

Halloween falls on a Monday night, which means I could actually dress up and do something. There’s a costume contest at work, but I have an aloof reputation to uphold. I guess if I really wanted to go, I could cut my hair short, put in some big novelty teeth, grab an armful of notebooks and go as Judy Miller. All I’d have to say all night is, “I remember talking to Scooter but I can’t recall what we talked about. You know they made me eat boar chitlins in prison?”