h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is something I wrote at work last night, and now I'm putting it here to torture all the rest of you. Enjoy.

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So here I am, working, on Halloween. If you can call this working. We're not passing out candy so everybody's walking right past us, which means I'm doing even less than usual. I can't even wear a costume. Here I stand, watching, as a hundred people in terribly interesting outfits go Trick or Treating /without/ me. Although you can't really call it "Trick" or Treating, can you? Nobody does tricks after all; it's really just "Treating". This holiday would be way cooler if people were doing tricks before your very eyes, don't you think? And why don't you get the day off on Halloween anyway? There are other days you don't have to work on. Christmas springs to mind, whether you're a Christian or not, nobody works on Christmas. Even Wal-Mart closes on Christmas Day for goodnes sake. You can't tell me it's because Halloween isn't religious, anybody who knows the first thing about Halloween's history knows that it's got more of a religious past than Christmas itself. Christmas is just an arbitrary date chosen seemingly at random to celebrate the birth of someone who, in his time, was generally believed to be an evil cult leader. Halloween, at least, evolved out of a far older and more mystical event.

Mind you, now it's just an excuse to dress up funny and get free candy. Just since I've been writing this, literraly dozens of people have walked in here, asked for candy, and walked right back out when I told them I couldn't give them any. Don't get me wrong, I /like/ Halloween, and I'd /like/ to give them candy, but evidently the owner of the arcade has some sort of passionate dislike for this night, because he refuses to acknowledge its existence.

Incedentally, am I the only one who thinks any aliens turning up now would probably figure our entire species was completely insane? Not that we make a good account of ourselves the rest of the year, but to E.T. we must seem truly nuts now. Dressing up as hundreds of terrifying images from our collective mythology, and hundreds more kind/nice things, /and/ hundreds if not thousands of completely unrelated things, not to mention the decorations, all jumbled together in the single pursuit of getting candy that we can buy for 10 bucks at the store? Add to that the fact that even the "scary" things have been warped and altered to appear comical and silly, and Spock will say that the only logical conclusion is that here we have an entire planet that's absolutely bananas. Either that, or he'd say that we're so ridiculously unafraid of even the Devil himself that it's only miraculous we've survived this long.

But the thing that really annoys me is the Jack o' Lanterns. There aren't any scary ones anymore. Look around and what do you see? Cheerful, happy pumpkins. Cheerful and happy, mind you, after having their heads cut open, their guts scooped out, their faces carved up, and a small fire lit inside them. When people people bother putting real fires in them at all that is, now they just use little electric lights. That's all well and good, but it completely eliminates the "eery" effect, and it just doesn't look very good. Of course, now they're not really pumpkins either. /Now/ they're small, plastic creations that you buy at Wal-Mart.

************************************************************Time Passes************************************************************

News update: The Pumpkin Chicken is nasty, and I just read a fortune cookie. A cheerful message is on it's way to me. Yay! I wonder what it is? Maybe I've won lots of money in a contest I didn't know I'd entered. Or maybe somebody I don't like has died. It could be all kinds of things. *Waits expectantly*

Blah! Why did I buy this?! I /hate/ this!
*Eats it anyway.*
And I'm mixing it with lemonade for crying out loud! This is aweful!
*Eats the rest.*
There. It's gone.
*Drinks more lemonade.*

*******************************************************Some More Time Passes*****************************************************

I'm going home now. Goodbye.

You didnt have a good halloween did you?
I have to confess to making a happy kitty cat pumpkin. I made one with a sad face too though. And I always use real fire! Fire is cool! You'd be happy to know that my brother made zombie pumpkins. They were actually really good. He made it look like one had taken a bite out of the other ones head.

I dont know if aliens would think we were nuts if they came on halloween... If they didnt know anything about us before then they may think we're like that all the time. They have nothing to compare it against... So for all they know going round door to door for candy every night is a earth ritual and perhaps we always dress up like that. After all, being aliens their own culture and dress may seem just as crazy to us.

~*~You didn't have a good Halloween did you?~*~

Well it could've been better is all I'm sayin'.

~*~I have to confess to making a happy kitty cat pumpkin. I made one with a sad face too though. And I always use real fire! Fire is cool!~*~

Rock on!

~*~You'd be happy to know that my brother made zombie pumpkins. They were actually really good. He made it look like one had taken a bite out of the other ones head.~*~

Awesome! How'd he do that?

~*~I dont know if aliens would think we were nuts if they came on halloween... If they didnt know anything about us before then they may think we're like that all the time. They have nothing to compare it against... So for all they know going round door to door for candy every night is a earth ritual and perhaps we always dress up like that. After all, being aliens their own culture and dress may seem just as crazy to us.~*~

Well yeah. But assuming they'd studied our planet last month, went back to Rigel 7 for coffee, and then showed up here on Halloween, without knowing it was coming. You don't think it'd seem a little strange to them?

A little behind the times here, I know... But I've always wondered about halloween, being brought up more pagan than anything else and very aware of ancient festivals, the seasons etc (we celebrate our xmas at the solstice... Same sh*t different day as they say ) We're getting more and more american in our traditions here, with it getting a little more 'just so long as you're in fancy dress it's cool' every year, though it is more for kids dressing up as dracula and ghosts... I hope it stays scary! Me and my wiccan friends were planning on gpong to the cemetary over the road from her house last year and scaring townie idiots out of their wits on their way home from the pub... No treats, just tricks! MWUAHAHAHA!

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