You’ve been waiting for this day since Costco started selling jack-o’-lanterns in June. You’ve been buying all the pumpkin spice products (even the shampoo, which I won’t question), candy (you have enough to make you Mars’s most valuable customer), and toilet paper (you’re the reason the Amazon Forest is shrinking) that you can in preparation for Halloween. But how can you now use all these novelties to enjoy Halloween to its fullest?
Step One: Toilet Paper
You should probably know by now that one of the oldest Halloween pranks is toilet-papering an unsuspecting neighbor’s house. While everyone’s away at school or work or wherever they are, you rent an 18-wheeler to transport your mountain of toilet paper. After driving it out onto the neighborhood road, you take a look around you, deciding which house to vandalize. Finally, you set your eyes on the closest one and start creating your masterpiece. You grab roll after roll after roll of toilet paper and swing them around the house. You don’t even stop for lunch. Instead, you throw some water balloons at the house to complete the look. A few hours later, you’re finally finished. And just in time for everyone in your neighborhood to start coming back, too. Everyone stops by the house, which by now looks like a Charmin publicity stunt, and their mouths drop, stunned beyond comprehension that someone would toilet paper their own house.
Step 2: Tricking Trick-or-Treaters
You’re the type of person that loves pranking innocent trick-or-treaters. You scoff at the people who put fake spiders on their porch and fake eyeballs in their punch. You have the real stuff. Your pumpkins are glowing red with the fire that burns inside them. You thought of importing black widows from down south, but reconsidered after realizing that it probably wasn’t the best idea. Instead, you buy a live mouse for each pail of candy, as well as a handful of garter snakes for good measure. You then go even further and empty out a package of tuna eyes into the punch that you prepared for the neighborhood party (which, by the way, you invited yourself to). Rubbing your hands in anticipation for the night ahead, you sit on your porch just as the sun sets. You know you have a monopoly on the trick-or-treating in your neighborhood – the dentist two houses down gives floss, while the parent across the road gives out Spinach brownies. You get tired of waiting after 15 minutes and decide to go check out your candy pails to make sure the mice and snakes are still inside. Unfortunately, you trip over an escaped mouse, landing your face in a pile of candy … and some unfriendly animals.
Step 3: Finale
After that little episode with those … things, you’re more determined than ever to ruin someone’s day. You go into your (newly toilet-papered) house and attempt to sit down at your desk to work out a plan twice, but your numerous bites (which one bit your toe?) prevent you from doing so. You stand and think, and come up with a genius plan. You’ll stand behind that large birch tree in your year with three cans of paint – white, yellow, and orange. When some innocent trick-or-treater walks by, you’ll douse them with paint, and then the bag of feathers that you’ve conveniently hung on the tree branch will open on them at well, thanks to an ingenious trigger that you’ve rigged up (you totally didn’t copy that from Home Alone). Hiding behind the tree, you rub your hands together (again) for a good half hour before realizing that no one is walking by. Sulking, you take a glance around the tree – no one in sight. You step out onto your driveway and start walking down the sidewalk, trying to see why no one’s falling for your trap. When you reach the house at the end of the cul-de-sac, the sound of laughter reaches your ears and you look up to see the entire neighborhood gathered on the roof, laughing at you. As your beautiful plan of revenge falls apart to pieces in front of your eyes, you jump up and down in rage screaming, “Not fair! Not fair!” You storm back to your house, but you’re so angry that you don’t even see the birch tree that you conveniently rigged. Reality sinks in, too little and too late, as you hit the tree. Your mouth drops open in horror as the paint cans fall on you in rapid succession. You fall to the ground with the impact and are just starting to get up when you see a cloud of feathers descending on your head.
Tomorrow, all that you can see online is the latest edition of “The Curious Case of the Candy Corn Chicken and its House of Toilet Paper”. What a way to celebrate Halloween.
