9:21 a.m. - 2006-10-24
Spiders and witches and goblins, oh my!
I don't know about your neighborhood, but in ours, halloween is becoming more and more like Christmas in terms of people decorating their houses and yards.
Some people go with a more cheerful, harvest feel with happy scarecrows and pumpkins, but other people are bordering on satanic. There is one house that I pass that has a gigantic inflatable spider with big sharp teeth and a mangled dead body hanging out of its mouth. The people two houses down have this large contraption with a pole, and a mechanical arm/hook thing that swings around the top, off of which hangs a VERY realistic looking witch on a broom that "flies" in a circle, her head kind of lolling off to the side, so she looks like crazed, drunken, extra-scary witch. The first time I saw it, it was dusk and I was carrying groceries. I saw this big black flying thing out of the corner of my eye and slowly turned toward it thinking "WHAT...THE...HELL...IS...THAT?????" It even freaks me out a little still...in broad daylight. Right next door, Stacy, our new neighbor, has some scary looking hanging cage with a stuffed goulish prosoner inside it. I usually forget about it, until I stumble out the front door for my morning walk and it scares the crap out of me.
Several people have been doing this odd thing that I don't quite get, where they create something with a pair of jeans and shoes where it looks like a person has been buried upside down or something and their feet are sticking out of the ground. I saw one person earlier this month constructing this very "decoration." He was having trouble attaching the shoes to the jeans, and then the legs kept falling over. The man seemed very frustrated, pacing back and forth trying different methods...I was walking/jogging and passed him several times - I avoid the larger hills in the neighborhood so being in southwestern PA, aka mega hill country, my exercise area is small and I go around the same blocks multiple times. I guess he finally decided that more cotton/fiber material was needed - I thought he was going to have a heart attack stuffing that pair of jeans. Later that day I went by and he had in fact found success. But I think it looks pretty dumb. I am not sure if it is supposed to be scary or funny.
There is one yard down the street that just can't decide on a motif. They have about 27 "figures" set up in their very small yard.
Several "spooky cat" cut outs. Grave stones. Headless people sitting in chairs at a card table. Pumpkins. Happy Halloween signs. Harvest hay bales and doll-like scarecrows. A ghoul head. Spider web stuff. Corn stalks. Casper the Friendly Ghost.
Pick a theme, People.
