We didn't end up decorating the house for Halloween after all. As Jim so eloquently put it, we're just not feelin' it this year and we're not doin' shit.
Besides, no one else in the neighborhood is doin' shit either. One house plopped a giant inflatable ghost in the middle of their yard. but they never turn it on, so it sits in a heap looking like a dead body. Which I suppose works just as well as Halloween decor. Another house has a pumpkin, but other than that... nada.
I'd read reports that sales of Halloween paraphernalia now rival those for Christmas, but not here. Halloween just isn't a big deal here. I chalk it up to lazy religious zealotry.
Speaking of Jim, I grew alarmed yesterday when I walked the dogs and noticed all his Exterior Decorations were gone. Although he vowed not to decorate for Halloween, that doesn't mean the house was unadorned. He still maintained what I consider his "baseline" collection: The potted plants and plastic chickens and metal frogs hanging from the trees, the giant metal grasshopper, the miniature Arc de Triomphe, the 49th banners and Happy Hour sign, the sculpture of the frog bar-b-queuing, the gargoyles, the sun and moon wall hangings and the flock of wooden seagulls. But yesterday it was all gone.
A couple of months back I had spoken to his father. He mentioned that he was getting ready to retire from Walmart and that he and his partner were considering moving. I was afraid this was the first sign that they were selling the house. But then I saw Jim this morning and asked him what was up and he said it was nothing more than the heavy fist of the Home Owners Association coming down hard and forcing him to clean up the yard. He seemed like a broken man, and I have to say some of the joy of the neighborhood is now gone.
