Hallo-wiener....

I generally ignore Halloween. I've never been a big fan of the holiday - I'm not a huge fan of dressing up, and while I like candy, it never made sense to me to walk around to a bunch of houses to get it when you can buy a bag at the store for like $2, or even less if you wait until it goes on clearance. It probably doesn't help that my costumes always sucked as a kid, plus I had a brother who was allergic to almonds, so I always was forced to "trade" with him for it.

As an adult, I've generally been able to ignore it. I lived the first couple Octobers of adulthood in the Reservoir Hill neighborhood of Baltimore City, where, as my landlord put it "in this section of Baltimore, if someone comes to the door wearing a mask, the last thing you do is open the door".

When I moved to the county the first year, I ended up hanging out at bsom's house on Halloween. Last year I ended up working at night - a coworker wanted to take the day off because he lived in Fell's Point, where Baltimore goes on Halloween to dress up and get drunk, and he didn't want to go to work and deal with having to find a parking space at 11pm on Halloween.

This year I figured that I'd go to the gym after work, and that it would be over by the time I got home. This was only partially motivated by anti-socialness and cheapness - I've also missed two days in a row of my workouts, plus I've been eating way too much this week, so I didn't want to miss another day. Besides, with all the students out getting drunk, the gym was pretty much all mine. Also, my porch light burned out, and I have yet to borrow a ladder to replace it.

When I rolled home around 7:40, there were still some neighbors on porches and kids milling around, and I felt like kind of a jerk scurrying into my house and closing the door. Maybe I should have skipped the gym, bought some peanut butter cups, and actually talked to my neighbors. But instead, I'm that creepy neighbor who ignores the holiday.

Then again, why should I have to give up what I want to do on a Friday night and spend my hard-earned money on candy for kids I don't know, who probably have at some point needed to get off my lawn? This whole Halloween thing reeks of socialism.