Fear is a big part of American culture all year round, not just on Halloween. It seems every day there’s a brand new predator Chris Hansen has yet to catch, or a new toxic substance hidden in products manufactured in China. The media keep us up to date on all the latest global pandemics, while the “Saw” movies remind us that, should we have the audacity to leave our houses, we will most certainly be abducted and then tortured to death in a series of sadistic Rube Goldberg machines.
What’s with that Jigsaw guy, anyway? Did he get a master’s in Deathtrapology from MIT? You never see him calling tech support because his room full of mechanically operated rusty steak knives breaks down.
Wait, what was I talking about?
Right. Fear. It’s everywhere. There’s a good chance you live in a house with an alarm system – God knows I do. I insist on walking my female friends home when it’s dark out. And as you may have read, I have so little trust in my fellow man that I’m unwilling to even let my bike out of my sight. Now more than ever, we have come to accept the fact that every passing stranger either wants to rob us, molest us, or teach us the value of life by forcing us to chop off our own limbs.
So what do we do? We retreat into our houses, triple-bolt the doors, and clean our guns while Dateline NBC tells us what we should be ready to shoot at. That’s the best way to not get killed by our incredibly scary world.
But there’s one night, every year, when we cast our paranoia to the winds and freely open our doors for any stranger with a hankering for candy. On Halloween, people everywhere leave most of their fears at home and wander the streets, mingling with folks they’ve never met and generally having a good time. What’s so ironic about this is that Halloween is also the one night of the year when it’s socially acceptable to pretend you’re a monster or a serial killer (or, for college students, a sexy monster or sexy serial killer). It’s as though on one magical night, we’re suddenly willing to look everything that scares us in the eye and give it a fun-sized Snickers.
Happy Halloween, everybody! Check your candy for razor blades and don’t leave your drinks unattended.
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