Scary Decorations

It’s that time of the year when our quiet neighborhoods turn into a cacophony of ghoulish delights, sort of. Halloween decorations do not make a place scary, unless you’re willing to go to Disney proportions. I think most of the stuff we decorate with does not so much as scare, but keeps us from being scared.

Most of what we put up is so cartoonish I think it keeps us from thinking about what’s really scary. There is so much to fear these days…mostly centered around creepy clowns. I would argue that clowns by definition are creepy, but this year it just seems like piling on. I really don’ find clowns creepy or amusing but there is a dead bat hanging from the ceiling in the fire escape that bothers me.

Real life is much scarier than the artifice of Halloween, even when it’s just a dead bat hanging from the ceiling. At least I think its dead.  Maybe that’s the scary part, Maybe it’s just waiting to get caught in someone’s hair. They do that you know.

The scariest house in my neighborhood has no decorations, not much activity at all except for the vegetation that is slowly reclaiming the property. Its frightening what neglect can do to landscaping, real scary stuff that can’t be replicated with cardboard skeletons and fake cobwebs. That’s the real haunted house. Haunted by the creepy clown named “Benign Neglect.” And ironically, the best way to exorcise that demon is with a chain saw, and a rake.