American Fez

Boo Hoo

According to the weather forecast, this year's Hallowe'en festivities will be haunted by the specter of relentless rain. Flickering flames in Jack O' Lanterns will surely be extinguished by the torrential downpour and just imagine all those damp phantoms and sodden wraiths floating around, dripping water all down the whispering gallery and leaving puddles beneath their portraits in the study. Spooks will need to hang their shrouds up to dry after stalking the streets and ghostly revenants should wipe their feet before crossing any thresholds. It's going to be a dank and swampy night for those returning from the grave; as if the dead don't smell bad enough already! 

I suppose we should feel sorry for them rather than afraid. After all, this is their one big night of the year and it will be a total washout. Skeletons must feel it the most, being bereft of protection against the elements. I mean, they are literally going to get soaked through. Dry as a bone? Not tonight, skull face. If they come trick or treating I'd be inclined to hand out umbrellas and sou'westers instead of candy or whatever it is the spirits actually want. Of course, they probably don't know themselves which is why they're always so gloomy and point portentously at nothing in particular. The rain is obviously only going to make their mood worse but I hope you have a happy Hallowe'en nonetheless.

Shopping Mallowe'en

Hallowe'en is here once again: a pumpkin-shaped cauldron crammed with monster masks and vampire dentures, luminescent skeletons and styrofoam tombstones, stage blood, too much chocolate, and enough fake cobweb string to weave a web so large it could ensnare an automobile. Free shipping via broomstick or expedited bat on all orders over a hundred bucks. As usual, this year my costume is an easy to assemble 'sexy' killjoy frown and grimace. 

The observance of All Hallows Eve, of course, was transformed into the modern holiday of Hallowe'en many years ago, so mine is an ancient gripe. But I often wonder when the consumerists will exploit currently under-commercialized observances like Ash Wednesday with collectible stickers for your forehead, palm leaf theme home decor, and confessional trading cards. Perhaps they already have and such items are sitting in a warehouse somewhere awaiting hype and promotion by Instagram influencers and a TV show tie-in. Then, just after New Year's Eve, we can complain about the local stores, "They've put the Lent stuff out already and it's not even St. Valentine's Day yet."

Crypto Currency

One of my pipe-dreams is to issue commemorative gold coins of myself. The obverse will feature my head in smug profile winking; the reverse an image of the Pied Piper with his rats. Around the coin are engraved the immortal words "This Coin's Value Is Frequently Debased," rendered in Latin and so small as to be unreadable without a microscope. On the other side is stamped the bad advice, "Make Important Decisions By Flipping." The coin will cost twenty bucks to special order, not including postage and packing, although I'll shave the gold down to a mere eight or nine bucks' worth before I actually release it into circulation Alas, I've yet to be involved in an event worth commemorating so the world of numismatics is short one very shiny but very fraudulent collectible.

Not that there would be much demand for my coin anyway. Most people do not carry cash around with them these days, preferring the convenience of plastic debit cards, and I'm sad to say this modern consumerist trend is true of me also. But I have a good reason for dispensing with dollar bills and small change. For a nominal fee, my bank allowed its customers to decorate their debit cards with a design of our own choosing. I suppose many family portraits or favorite works of art were sent to the bank's printers, but I uploaded an image of a plain blue background emblazoned with the caution "Are You Sure You Want To Buy This?" in bold yellow letters. If nothing else it's a conversation piece at cash registers and other points of purchase and makes me happy until I can finally mint my coin.

Distressing Tresses

One afternoon in October of 1987, on my first day of work at a real job, Sarah the receptionist went home in a flood of tears. It was nothing to do with me, thank God.

Apparently, there had been a mishap at a hairdressing salon during her lunch hour; either her hair color was now a displeasing shade or her permanent wave was too frizzy or perhaps not frizzy enough. The exact circumstances surrounding her distress were not explained to anyone, especially new members of staff like myself. Suffice it to say that Sarah could no longer answer the phone with such a disastrous hairstyle. An executive assistant sporting a low-maintenance pixie-cut took her place for the rest of the day.

As this was my first day of work, I callowly assumed all this commotion to be standard procedure in any place of business. Hence, should I require time off, I could simply bribe some complicit barber to give me a ridiculously lopsided pompadour. 'Go home and let that mess grow out,' I imagined my boss saying, 'and we'll see you back here in a month or so.'

But, alas, when I actually did get my hair highlighted in a foolish-looking eighties fashion, my boss forced me to remain at work suffering the taunts and mockery of my more conventionally coiffed colleagues. How I wished I'd settled for a simple military buzz cut instead of trying to be the office David Bowie. I took to wearing a baseball cap at my desk to deflect the wisecracks. 

Nor was I granted a leave of absence when I detected my first bald patch a few years later. By then, of course, I fully understood that Sarah going home because of an upsetting experience at the salon was the exception rather than the rule. Our workplace was no nurturing cradle of compassion when it came to matters of personal embarrassment. In fact, it was a dark, Satanic mill where the best you could expect was graphic images of your humiliation pinned to the company noticeboard for weeks. 

I saw Sarah again recently at my local pharmacy. She was buying a box of tissues and a bottle of hair dye. I had no doubt the two items were related: the tissues a precaution should the new hair color prove unattractive once again. And would she call-in sick to wherever she worked these days if that was the case? The leopard cannot change its spots despite the woman unwisely deciding to change her hair color yet again.

My own basket contained a month's supply of rejuvenating scalp tonic and a jar of Bay Rhum beard oil. I'm pretty sure Sarah squinted at me but couldn't put a name to the furry face beneath the gleaming pate. At any rate, she left the store without saying hello.

Economy Class

The airport concourse is a parade of travelers clad in flips flops, sweatpants, fleeces, and plushy neck pillows that call to mind a resort-wear version of an Elizabethan ruff; so much synthetic fabric that you might imagine the airplanes on the runway are borne aloft by static electricity.

At the departure gate, a young woman in full-body pink polyester is sprawled across three seats, encircled by her personal technology devices, a fast-food feast, and a mountain-range of carry-on luggage. She might as well be at home curled up on her own couch for all she cares about her surroundings. I could never feel comfortable being as comfortable as she so evidently is. In fact, I'm only that relaxed when asleep in my bed at night, and even then I'm probably having an anxiety dream. 

Later, in Row Z of the plane, I'm squashed in beside a pungent man who's obviously spent a five-hour layover in the airport bar. He's dressed in a suit and tie but smells like he bathed in a barrel of beer then toweled himself dry with a pack of Doritos. Clearly my lifetime ambition should have been to buy a private jet. Alas, it's too late for that now.