Halloween is coming up, so I am reminiscing about the Halloweens I’ve endured.
Third grade was the worst. Until then, everything was fine. Oct. 31 would roll around, the adults would dress you up, hand you a bag and walk you around the neighborhood. And strangers would stuff candy in the bag and you’d eat it all and get sick, and you would love it.
But in third grade they made us show up at school in costumes like that and suddenly it was an institution. Photographers were brought in and we were paraded around the school because cuteness sells newspapers.
Speaking of newspapers, we’re having a Halloween party at the Real Change office on the day before. One vendor, seeing the notices for the party, launched herself into a rant about what a horrible idea Halloween is and how sugar is one of the worst foods there is, and nobody should be eating that much and so forth. When vendors rant more than I do, I become disoriented.
There’s a question: Why do we become oriented or dis-oriented, but we never become occidented or dis-occidented?
I don’t know either, but I’ve always believed it has to do with the fact that in the early Middle Ages maps of Europe often showed east at the top, in order to elevate Jerusalem as much as possible and in order to lower Spain as much as possible, because the Visigoths had overrun Spain.
Here in Seattle, even addresses go on the east and north sides of streets, because even numbers are nice and dignified and smooth and belong to civilized directions, whereas odd numbers are crude and vulgar and so belong to the west and south sides of streets, from whence barbarians and dragons pour.
I know it’s the opposite in Lynnwood, but that just goes to show what you can expect up there.
All these kinds of curiosities of human thought and habit are predicted by the science of stupidology. Stupidology also predicts that if in any one year some nutcase decides that one day of that year is different from all other days of that year because for some reason there are or will be more ghouls and demons out and about on that day (especially after dark, but before midnight), then, for every year after, the same will be the case on the same day of that same month.
Demons just love to frolic in the evenings of Thirty-firstses of Octobers and at no other times do they do so: The science of stupidology predicts that ideas such as that will occur again and again throughout history, as long as there are people to think them.
Naturally, demons love candy and toilet papering houses. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that. Some of my best friends have been demons.
Then there are the costumes. So, demons are bad. Therefore, we will dress up as them. Unless we dress as a cat, or as a chainsaw murderer, or as Ronald Reagan.
Now that Trump has more or less come out in favor of murdering journalists, or at the least body-slamming them, he qualifies more than ever before as a demonic being, so expect hundreds of little Trumps Trick-or-Treating next week.
When the news broke that Jamal Khashoggi was probably not only murdered in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, but also subsequently dismembered, a number of people said to me, “Wes, why don’t you write about that in your next column?” The science of stupidology predicted they would say that.
We’re trying to write a humor column here and all we have to go on are the murder of a journalist and the fact that nearly half the U.S. is fine with it as long as their leader doesn’t mind. Why do we even have laws at all? If a murder happens in a forest and nobody is there to see it except Donald Trump, is it really a murder? “We’ll have to wait and see.”
Seriously, who does Trump care about besides fellow rich people who abuse power? Putin is rich and abuses power. Trump likes him loads. He has fallen head over heels in love with Kim Jong-un. The whole Saudi royal family consists of Trump BFFs. He thinks Kanye West is dreamy.
We don’t need Halloweens anymore.We live in scary times all year long. At the stroke of midnight Nov. 1, the entirety of the saints aren’t going to save us from one Donald J. Trump.
Dr. Wes Browning is a one time math professor who has experienced homelessness several times. He supplied the art for the first cover of Real Change in November of 1994 and has been involved with the organization ever since. This is his weekly column, Adventures in Irony, a dry verbal romp of the absurd.
Check out the full Oct. 24 - 30 issue.
Real Change is a non-profit organization advocating for economic, social and racial justice. Since 1994 our award-winning weekly newspaper has provided an immediate employment opportunity for people who are homeless and low income. Learn more about Real Change.