My son reached a huge milestone recently on his journey into manhood.
So happy was I for my baby boy that I nearly cried tears of joy.
Max has decided he doesn’t want to go trick or treating this year.
Which means, of course, this will be the greatest Oct. 31 of my entire adult life.
No more fretting over trying to pick out the perfect costume. No more rushing home from work to get him ready in time to go through our neighborhood, essentially begging for candy. No more sorting through the candy before bedtime and trying to convince him he can’t eat it all that night (and trying to make sure his older sister doesn’t steal it all that night).
I’m so happy that trick or treating has come to an end in the Fong household that I feel as though I should reward him in some way commensurate with the joy he has brought into my life.
I’m thinking about buying him a Lamborghini.
It’s not so much that I hate holidays and special occasions, it’s just that I hate anything in my life that requires me to put forth even a modicum of effort.
Let’s face it — holidays are seriously hard work. Easter requires the coloring and hiding of eggs. The Fourth of July requires grilling food and shooting off fireworks — or, at the very least, traveling to a designated location and getting eaten alive by mosquitoes while professionals shoot off fireworks. Birthdays require cakes and presents. Christmas means endless decorations and shopping.
None of these things appeal to me — because none of them involve my favorite pastime of laying on the couch while alternately taking naps and watching college football. If someone ever decided that was an official holiday, I’d pretty much be the king of that day.
If it were up to me, all the holidays would be combined into one day during the year in which we would celebrate all of them at once. We could decorate a tree with colored eggs, dress up in scary costumes, hand out presents, grill hamburgers and cook turkeys (I’d probably stuff the hamburgers inside the turkey because it would make things easier and taste delicious), drink green beer, give one another sappy cards and boxes of chocolate and then have one big countdown as midnight approached.
We could do it all on one day, then be done with it. I’d probably sleep in late and go to bed early, thus ensuring I had minimal involvement in said activity.
Of all the holidays I hate — which, with the exception of Arbor Day, is pretty much all of them — the holiday I hate the most is Halloween.
I have never been a fan of Halloween — even when I was a kid, I tended to view Oct. 31 with a certain amount of dread. I think this was, in part, because I was guaranteed to have the worst costume in the neighborhood every year. My mother, you see, hated Halloween then every bit as much as I do now, and therefore put exactly zero effort into ensuring I ever had a worthwhile costume.
And that’s how, for six years in a row, I was dressed as a hobo for Halloween. That’s right, in a less politically correct day and age, it was completely acceptable for parents to dress their children up as the economically disadvantaged. My mother basically accomplished this goal by having me wear some of my dad’s old clothes, smearing some dirt on my face and handing me a bindle consisting of a bandana attached to a yardstick.
Truth be told, my Halloween costume as a kid probably made me look a lot like I do now in every day adult life.
Since then, I’ve never been a fan of Halloween — not only because of the emotional scarring, but like I said, Halloween takes some serious effort. I hate picking out a pumpkin. I hate carving a pumpkin and putting it on the front porch. I hate my wife nagging me all the way until Easter to “Please throw away the rotten pumpkin on our front porch.”
I hate walking around the neighborhood with my kids while they ring the doorbells of strangers. Alternately, I hate sitting at home and having strange children ring my doorbell and ask me for candy. And ever since I was diagnosed with type-2 diabetes earlier this year, I can’t even enjoy candy anymore.
That’s right — Halloween is now officially a holiday that could kill me.
But not anymore. Max has crossed over into manhood. On Halloween night, I plan on turning off all my lights, sitting at home in the dark and drinking root beer. I may have Max join me.
He is, after all, a man now.
David Fong writes for the Troy Daily News, a division of Aim Media Midwest.
