Usually, the ever-growing family of spider crickets in our basement are happy just hopping around in the dark making more spider crickets, but not during this time of the year.
From now until well after Christmas, their hopping and other activities are greatly curtailed by the constant interruption of large plastic tubs being removed, replaced, and shifted around.
Yes, Dear Reader, it’s holiday decorating time once again, and this year we have more stuff to get out and put out than ever before.
But do we actually have enough? Well, that depends on which side of the asking you are on. Hold onto your wallet, because getting the yard and house ready for the coming holidays will be more expensive than ever before.
If your significant other ever asks, “Do we really need more decorations?” The answer is always yes. Yes, we do. But instead of just taking my word for it, let’s look at this logically.
First, regardless of their size, can you really have too many spiders crawling across your roof, hanging from trees, or tangled up in webs? And Harry, our blowup spider that takes up most of the front lawn needs a little eight-legged buddy or two, doesn’t it? Harry lights up at night, is fifteen feet across and now celebrating his 25th year decorating our front lawn. The obvious answer to all the questions above is that you always have room for another spider.”
Growing up back on Flamingo, we’d decorate the front lawn during Halloween with ghosts, witches, and spider webs hanging from a few trees, construct a makeshift cemetery, and dig a bottomless pit.
Things certainly have changed in fifty years. Now our front lawn has ghosts, witches, and spiders — all equipped with motion sensors hanging from every tree. Any unfortunate human walking by causes them to activate into to a chorus of screaming and moaning. Last year we even had buckets of water and dry ice making an eerie fog drift over our lawn.
This year we’re gonna have a real smoke machine, but our yard still needs a few more decorations to make it the must-see scary destination of the neighborhood. We need Bones and his big brother, Mister Scary.
Last year, turning a corner in the giant hardware store with the orange roof, I ran into Bones – a giant twelve-foot skeleton! I was going to buy him, but at a price tag of $300, he was well out of my decorating allowance. So, if I wanted Harry to have a giant skeleton friend keeping him company on our front lawn, I had to save money for a year. Also, that gave me enough time to convince The Wife that Bones was a must have decoration for Halloween. That was then, this is now.
A year later, I still haven’t been able to convince The Wife that a twelve-foot skeleton on our front lawn will make us THE scary destination. As difficult as it has been trying to convince her that spending $300 on Halloween is not only justified, but something we must do (and by “we,” I really mean me), it has just gotten a lot harder.
Welcome to the tallest, largest, and scariest lawn decoration of them all! Say hello to our potential new friend, Mister Scary!
The fifteen-foot towering phantom will be center stage on our front lawn, right next to Bones and our old friend, Harry. That is, just as soon as I can convince The Wife that not only do we need to spend $300 for Bones, but we should spend $400 for his bigger brother Mister Scary. It could be a hard sell, but I think she’ll understand. After all, our Girly Girls want both too, and I’d just hate to disappoint them.
Last weekend, The Wife ventured down to the basement, but quickly came back up saying, “We have way too many tubs of Halloween decorations and way too many spider crickets down there.”
I agreed and chuckled, “We could just buy a house with a bigger basement. That way, next year, we’ll have plenty of room for Bones and his big brother Mister Scary. Problem solved.”
The Wife smiled, and said jokingly, “I got a better idea. You could move, taking the decorations and all those spider crickets with you. Problem solved.”
At least I think she was joking.
[Rick Ryckeley has been writing stories since 2001.]
