A Halloween Story by Scott

Twas the night of Halloweenfestathon 2004. The night had gone as well as could be expected. Soup had been served in bread bowls, little plastic spiders had been tossed all over the place, and Mingus had suckled upon Joey's teat. The problem here was that all of this had happened already, and it was just now passing 9:30 PM. I was out of material to keep the fantastic fun continuing. I tried throwing more spiders, but one flew into someone’s eye, and I decided that the guests would probably have more fun if I didn't blind them. I didn't take long for me to realize that I hadn't planned the event out particularly well. I had a remote controlled zombie, and I guess I thought that it was all I was going to need for the evening. I mean, the thing freakin' crawls! I could watch it for hours, except it creeps me out so I just leave it in the box. Anyway, it soon becomes apparent to some of my more observant guests that I no longer have any plans for the evening, and I note that some folks start getting restless. I start to hatch a fantastic escape plan for myself should things get ugly. It involved a lot of owl noises and all the cans of shaving cream that I can get my hands on. Anyway, at this point, barlow declares that a special screening of "Night of the living dead" will be taking place at that nifty theatre that occupies the basement of the West's home. I was saved! Soon everyone but myself has begun the journey to the Wests. I hang back to do my initial little plastic spider roundup. Ah, I should have mentioned at the start that while costumes were not required to the event, they were wholly endorsed. And, appropriately, some folks came in costume, and some did not. As for myself, I have a costume that I wear every year. When I put on this costume, a no longer am mild-mannered dudicus64, but rather, I become mild-mannered dudicus64 in a expensive wizard costume. This costume come complete with robe, rope belt (apparently wizards are pretty cheap), a staff with some sort of head upon it, and finally, a majestic wizard hat with a big plastic skull upon the front. I assume that this skull is in place to let other wizards know that I am a wizard bad-ass. Well, now we have that little bit of information out of the way, lets continue on with the main plot line. So, as I'm picking up literally thousands of little plastic spiders, I get an idea. "Lets go to the Wests in our wizards costume" I thinks, "Then I truly will be the king of halloween". So, I give up on the spider picking-up, and race around to get myself in complete wizard form again. Finally, I manage to pin down all the elements of the costume and hop in my car. This task is complicated by the fact that I'm not used to driving in standard wizard clothes, and when I go to make a right turn, I find that one of my magnificent wizard sleeves is rather unceremoniously pinned firmly in my car door. Being a wizard is proving to be more difficult than anticipated. One doesn't think about the dangers facing a driving wizard until they have found themselves in that position. Finally, I manage to complete the turn by pinning my wizards staff to the steering wheel and shoving on it with my foot. I was rather proud of that, and that is the only reason I have shared this part of the tale. So finally I arrive. I take a few minutes to free all the bits and pieces of my garment from the clutches of my car, grab my staff (not in the perverted sense), and enter the party already in progress. What I sight I was! Truly, if a nerd ever really did become a wizard, he would look just like me that night! I say a polite, wizardly hello to all the guests around me and then I see the dog.... To say that things got weird at this point would be a bit of an understatement. Never before has such an awesome K-9 transformation taken place in such a short amount of time. In the matter of....well...no time really, the Wests dog has gone from a seemingly mild version of mans best friend to a spinning, barking, growling and overall freaking out twister of destruction. The poor beast would not dare venture closer than 10 feet to me, but from that distance this creature put up a most impressive display of little dog ferocity. In response to this alarming turn of events, I do what anyone in my awkward situation would do. I turn and charge towards the dog. The response to this was fantastic. The dog nearly runs straight through a couch and probably would have not thought twice about going through a window to escape my apparently terrifying visage. Now, I'm not a cruel person. I see that my presence is causing this dog no end of torment, so I call off my chase of the dog. To help calm down the poor little critter, Joey picks her up and begins to talk soothingly to her. All the time this dog is still just spazzing out, complete with the barking and any other noise that a dog can manage to make. Then I notice it. Joey is seemingly covered in a growing pool of some sort of liquid. "What is that stuff"? I ask myself. That crazy Joey is covered in something! About this time, Joey too notices the mystery liquid, and we all soon conclude that I had indeed scared the dog badly enough that it hath loosened it's bowels upon Joey. I don't remember exactly, but I believe that upon further inspection, no small amount of fecal material was also found upon the floor*. I had literally scared the shit out of the Wests dog. I took off the costume, but to this day that dog won't venture more than 10 feet closer to me. So if any of you have a bothersome wizard living 'round your parts, don't invite the wests over.


*Joey ate the poo.