Jerry Hoffman

Halloween is just around the corner and there’s nothing scarier than a top ten list of scary things. That’s unless of course, it’s a top thirteen list of scary things. Here is the official list of the fall season: The Top Thirteen Things to Be Scared of this Halloween:

13. Christmas decorations. True, they have been up since the end
of August, so you might be used to them by now, but do we really need to
rush this holiday? It would be nice of Halloween and Thanksgiving could
occur before I have to be bombarded with fake Christmas trees, giant Santa
Clauses and plastic manger scenes. “Let it Snow” should not be allowed to
play on any store loud speaker at a time of year when the actual occurrence
would be a freak act of nature.

12. Mimes. They don’t talk, they have painted faces and they’re always
stuck in an invisible box. On second thought, they’re not scary. They’re
annoying.

11. The return of Tiffany. Word has it that she will be putting out
a new album soon. Is there no end to this madness? Someone should tell her
that there are no 60’s songs left for her to cover, and she might actually
have to (gasp!) write her own material this time around.

10. Devils Night. This ritual of pranks takes place tonight. Too
bad that Mount Pleasant is decidedly boring when it comes to events such
as these.

9. The hairstyles in “Pay it Forward.” Helen Hunt looks like she
plunged head-first into a bottle of bleach and bad taste, Bon Jovi has a
slicked back version of a 46-year housewife’s bouffant and Haley Joel Osment
has the beginnings of a child-sized mullet. Who allowed this travesty of
style to transpire?

8. Preacher Rick. We all know who he is. We all know what he says.
We all know where he says we’re going. We all know why he’s on this list.

7. Spiders. They’re little and have the ability to hide in small places. The big ones are even scarier because they look like they have the ability to bite your arm off. Or at least cause some sort of damage. I’ll never forget when I got out of the shower late at night, put my robe on and found a spider twice the size of a small rodent on it. I’ve always been scared of spiders, but I will never, ever recover from that incident.

6. This year’s presidential election. As far as I’m concerned the only worthy candidate is Nader, so of course, he won’t win. So that leaves us with either the rich, middle-aged white guy who has trouble forming complete, intelligent sentences, or…the rich, middle-aged white guy who makes outrageous claims (such as, “I invented the Internet”) and looks like a mannequin (which are also creepy). The future of our country is in one of these dumbasses hands. Enjoy.

5. Mid-terms. We are officially at the mid-point of the semester. This is the point at which: a.) You will see that you have been doing an excellent job with your studies, making you the envy of every other student and the apple of your parents eye OR b.) You will receive your mid-term
grades and say “Oh, so those are the classes I’ve been enrolled in. Maybe
I should start attending them. Nah.”

4. “The Exorcist.” This movie was scary enough the first time around.
Now, it has been re-released, featuring some new footage. What can they
do to top off spinning heads, contorting faces and a little girl spewing
forward pea soup? I suppose they could have a soundtrack featuring Creed
and Vertical Horizon. Creed. Now that’s some scary stuff right there.

3. The cover art for Limp Bizkit’s new album, “Chocolate Starfish and
the Hotdog Flavored Water.” The only thing scarier than the actual name
of this album is their terrible excuse for the cover artwork. It’s so bad
it can’t even be called “art.” Durst and his crew aren’t even clever in
their attempt at making strange sexual (is that what it is?) connotations
with the title. The cover is an obvious display of alien-like creatures
laying in a pile of phallic symbol hotdogs. And there is no question as
to what is on that starfish.

2. Mount Pleasant Police. All the little trick-or-treaters better
beware. They might be handing out nuisance party tickets to groups of third
graders walking along the sidewalk on Halloween night. Especially if they’re
all rowdy and hopped up on Skittles and Butterfingers.

1. Clowns.

E-mail the author: Tricia WoolfendenLIFE Et cetera Writer