Halloween Spoiler Shirley Nagel Actually Gave Me an Idea

Though I love Halloween, I've never been big on handing out the candy to the kiddies, but I love to decorate and think of new ideas to celebrate.

One year I had the brainstorm to go to Goodwill, buy a bunch of kids' books (coloring books, science books, picture books, and dinosaurs) that were in good condition, wipe them with a mild bleach solution, put them in a caldron-type pan and slip a note in a scary font in each book ("We thought your kids would enjoy a book this year, from your neighbors at blah, blah"), add a bunch of dracula pencils, pumpkin bubble-blowers, and black cat erasers, and let the kids dig for what they wanted.

Well, don't let anyone tell you that reading is dead (arh, arh) because the little tykes loved it! They didn't need my help. Every kid took one book. The parents thanked us profusely. I got to light candles, eat popcorn, and watch all the Vincent Price movies I could stand. It was a success.
Well, I've been majorly sick this year, for months actually, and was finally put on antibiotics just before this Halloween, so all I could do this year was unscrew the outside bulb and lie down until my headache subsided and I could keep some food down. Ugh. It sucked. (I want to dress as the undead, not feel like them.)

But it didn't suck as much as the Halloween in Grosse Pointe Farms, where some fanatical McCain delegate to the RNC named Shirley Nagel is in real need of an intervention:




Shirley, Sugar (what else can I call you?), you are taking this election wayyyyy too seriously! Holy crap. Then there's the footage of her being interviewed by Triumph the Insult Comic Dog after she denied her fellow delegates their turn at the cabernet trough.


Would this Renaissance woman be able to tell Amantillado from sherry? Somehow I doubt it.


But at least when she gave blood (50 proof?) earlier this year, as she claims, she didn't designate whether it should go to a McCain or an Obama supporter, and all those red-state corpuscles probably contained both cabernet and all the candy corns she saved for herself from the Halloween jar. Ooh! Cab 'n candy! Vampire's delight. Somebody keep Lestat from this mortal.

But her idiocy (not to mention sheer meanness) gave me an idea. Why not teach the kiddies to vote on Halloween?

Voting is one of the things you'd think they'd learn in school, but don't - along with compound interest and how to balance a checkbook. (We had a mock stock exchange in junior high - talk about bedlam. Fun.)

Next year, make up ballots for the kids and tell them to circle their choice and place their ballot in the witches cauldron you have in the yard:

Who would make the best President of Halloween?
a) The Great Pumpkin (Do kids know who this is anymore?)
b) Santa Claus
c) Spiderman
d) Dora the Explorer
e) Frankenstein
f) [Write in your candidate here]


Or whoever/whatever. Then keep a running tally throughout the evening and post the updates on the sign held by the ghost hanging from your tree in the front yard.

If you hand out candy in addition to this, give out candy to everyone (duh!) but hand out "I voted really scary" stickers to those who fill out a ballot. Glow-in-the-dark ones. That'll get the stragglers to register.

That would be fun! That would be a kick. Unlike the brainstorm of Shirley Nagel, who just won an all-expenses-paid, bipartisan house toilet-papering, egg-throwing, and flaming-dog-poop-on-the-stoop party for the entire next year. And well deserved, I must say.

I just don't know how anyone could work compound interest/balancing the checkbook into Halloween, though. Next year, we'll probably just go to a party, as we did last year.

Maybe I'll go as Shirley Nagel.


(Listen, though - If I eventually manage to convince kids to "straighten up your room for Halloween," I expect someone to nominate me for the Nobel Peace Prize. Got that?)