Guest Blogger: The Spare

The days are getting shorter, there is a hipster wearing every item of clothing in his closet, drinking a pumpkin spiced something or other, and I’ve got a wicked cold. These could all only mean one thing: It’s the beginning of fall. 

 While drinking a spicy gourd is not really my thing, fall definitely is. I love the colorful foliage, and the (to quote my hero circa 2005, Rachael Ray) yum-o food. Being from a quaint, albeit snobby, small town, autumn was our time to shine. I fondly remember not paying attention at the big high school football games. I would even have to work at our pathetic but cute fall festival which showcased horrifying homemade scarecrows and blue haired woman giving out sugar-free candy if you promised to donate to the church.

 

But there was one special day where we really pulled out all the big guns. Halloween.  

Oh my bored gods, was Halloween the main event of Snobville! Kids went ham, adults used up disposal cameras by the dozen, snapping the best shots of their children in the most up to date costumes out there. Parades, haunted houses, free candy, overly kitschy theme parties, and goofy decorations as far as the eye could see. It was perfect.

 

Once I got to college, I found myself very sad as Halloween approached. This was a shocking first. Had I become too old to enjoy my favorite holiday? Soon the existential crisis checked in for what seemed like an extended stay. To make things even worse, I had class until 10:00 pm on Halloween so I couldn’t even go home to steal candy from little kids give out candy. My class was late enough that I couldn’t even watch a cheesy Halloween movie afterwards because I had class the next day at 8:30. Talk about mega bummer.

 

So I put my best foot forward. Put on my classiest pair of cat ears and high tailed it (pun intended) to my six hour studio class. When I came home that night I was blown away by how much of a nut my mother is. She managed to sneak into my dorm room and tee-pee my side of the room, right down to the pictures I had of my cat. She did this through what I could only imagine was a Grade A espionage mission. For the full story check out the blog post on November 1st, 2012.
Readers, if you haven’t picked up on it by now, my mom is incredible. She always finds ways to make life interesting and unconventional. Growing up it wasn’t her activity in the PTA that made her special to me. It was her ability to make even the most mundane things seem silly. To give you some perspective, she used to moo at my sister and our friends, and for some reason we just LOVED this. Even when she was in the PTA she did things that made me feel so special. For our fifth grade holiday party she made a huge batch of my favorite Christmas punch and served it from a fountain! I felt like the most important person in the world that day.
I guess that’s what is so incredible about my mom. When you least expect it, she will do something so amazing that will make that existential crisis go find someone else to bother. When she asked me to do a guest blog post about a Halloween memory, I knew right away that I had to write about my first Halloween in college. Because no matter how many wonderful years of parades and trick or treating I had, nothing will be sweeter than knowing you have a nut for a mom who loves you so much she’ll waste a whole two rolls of toilet paper just to brighten up your day.