Isobel: "Daddy if you win the lottery can we get a farm?"
Daddy: "Honey, if I win the lottery you can have your very own farm."
Isobel: "Really!!?!?"
Daddy: "Sure, but if I don't win the lottery I'm gonna kick the crap out of both of you."
Isobel: "Wait, what? You're going top kick the crap out of both of who?"
Daddy: "You two. You and The Boy."
Isobel: "Why would you do that?"
Daddy: "Well I have to blame somebody for not winning, might as well be you two."
Isobel: "Oh."
Daddy: "Oh? That's it? You're not worried that I'm gonna kick the crap out of you and your brother if I lose?"
Isobel : "Pfft! I have my feet. He's on his own."
It's coming to that time of year, when Izzy and I start cruising around to costume shops checking out all the Halloween goodies. The creepy lights and smoke, the gimmicks and make up and masks...ah favourite time of year.
Now I should interject a couple of things here that might be important as we go along. First off, we used to go to Canadian Tire and Walmart and places of that nature...well lit places because Isobel was absolutely petrified and lost her mind at the one honest to god costume shop we went to. Maybe it was the creepy crawly things on the floor or the motion activated jump out and scare the bejesus out of you things or maybe it as a combination of all of them but whatever the reason, she screamed in the store, started crying and announced that Halloween was stupid and she didn't care if she didn't get any candy. She just 'wanted out of the damn store anyway!'
Now I should also add (and I am almost certain that have mentioned this before and that I am likely to mention it again) that I nearly shat myself the first time I saw the Exorcist. It touched something way down inside and it still bothers me to see it to this day. BUT every time it comes on the television I watch it. Now a days, I am forced to watch it alone downstairs, Mrs. Narrator is also terrified of the Exorcist but doesn't have the same sick compulsion to watch it that I do. I like to be scared. Even a couple days after when the nightmares have stopped and I ask myself why I keep doing this I'll remember that it's because I enjoy having the bejesus scared out of me.
OK, so there we were at the costume shop and the first thing we see on the way in is a gigantic picture of Linda Blair and not the one from the dirty magazine.
"Look Daddy, The Exorcist! Isn't that the movie that scares you?" Izzy said.
"Yep," I replied. "That's the one."
"What's so scary about that?" she asked in a kind of disbelieving tone.
Now I have a copy of this movie in the basement that I watch from time to time on my own...this is one of those moral dilemmas that one faces all the time. Do I go fetch the movie when we get home and show the mocking first grader exactly why this is the scariest movie ever made? Only to deal with the fallout until she's about 24?
"Kinda tough to explain, Pick. Maybe when you're older we can watch it together."
This Halloween store was really the show room for the spook set. They had a working version of nearly every lawn display and motion activated thing a majinx in the place...and we tried them all. I figured I would be rushing her out of there, screaming and bawling and cursing Halloween and all that it was but she wasn't phased by any of it. In fact, she went back to the ones that made her jump and scream and tripped the motion sensors again. Only to jump and scream again. She did it over and over again and her reactions were genuine pretty much all of the time. I know when she's being fakey and there was no fakery in the way she leaped away from the gigantic jumping spider. Hell, it scared me at least twice.
"Daddy?" she asked. "Can we go back around to them all again?"
"Let's go look at some costumes first."
The Boy, who had been mostly silent up to this point came running at me with his costume choice. He has been the Ghost faced killer ( not from The Wu Tang Clan) for the last two or three years and this year was really just a variation of that albeit an unsettling one. His mask is hooded again but in the front of it is a mirror. Of course he can see out through the back of it but you can't see his face. it is a baffling thing to the human brain to see a body but not to be able to see a face. Well it bothered me anyway.
Next came our delicate little snap pea. Did I mention that clowns bother me too? They do. Did I mention that the first mask Isobel tried on was a scary clown mask? Not just her idea of a scary clown, Pennywise had nothing on this thing. Clowns are scary enough but couple that mask with the eyes of a child and your brain goes into overdrive. The expression in the eyes betrays the look on the face and suddenly you are a monkey on the savannah looking into the face of certain death. Cuddly , fluffy death."Isobel, that is just about the creepiest thing I have every seen."
"Really?" she asked with glee. "Is it really scaring you?"
"I wouldn't say it was scaring me but it is bothering me. Why don't you try a different mask."
She took off the clown mask and went to look for something else. I walked over to The Boy to see what he had picked. He had not found anything that rivalled the mirror mask. I had to agree.
I felt a tug on the back of my shirt and turned to see Isobel...in the disturbing clown mask.
"Take that thing off, it's creepy."
"Muahaha!" she laughed her big fakey, evil laugh.
"Really Pick, go take it off and go find another one."
I turned back to The Boy and felt a familiar tug on my shirt. Scary clown, wiggly evil fingers and "Muahaha!"
"Isobel, if you don't take off that freaky clown mask, not only are we not going to see the motion stuff again, we will leave this story right now."
"OK." she relented and started to walk back to the rack of scary clown masks. (yes, a whole god damned rack of them) I saw The Boy was wandering off toward the door and turned to call him.
"Daddy," I heard. Clown mask and all, it was like a scene from a bad Karen Black movie, I expected her to pull a knife from behind her back and hack me to death with it.
"Muahaha!"
Oh yeah, that's my kid.
We did make it to the mall and on our way through Walmart, we naturally looked at the Halloween stuff and video games and toys and well, pretty much everything the Merchant of Shame has to offer.
"I'm hongry," I said. Let's go eat and we can look at this stuff on the way out.
"OK," said Izzy. "I'm hongry too. ( that's not a typeo folks, it's the way we say it. When you're really hungry, you're hongry)
"Daddy?" she asked me after we sat down to eat.
"What's up buttercup?" I said.
"Daddy, it's not even Halloween yet, right?"
"Right."
"Then why the were they playing dang Christmas music already?"
"What?" I asked. "Where were they playing Christmas music?"
"At Walmart," she said. "We were walking around and Christmas music was playing and I was wondering what the hell was going on?"
I have to admit I didn't hear any Christmas music but stranger things have happened. We finished our mall Chinese food and headed back out through Walmart.
"Daddy, listen!" she shouted. "That's the Christmas music!"
...well he did want peace on earth.
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