Growing up, Christmas had been the only holiday where my family really decorated the house. Birthdays might warrant a ‘Happy Birthday’ banner strung up on the wall and Easter brought some flowers and colored eggs in a basket, but that was it. It wasn’t until after I was married that I realized my future ex-wife Arlene had a deep, dark secret: she was addicted to Halloween.
Like any addiction, it started out harmless enough. In our first small apartment there were just a few novelty pumpkins and a small smattering of witches and goblins scattered about. However, much how a goldfish will grow to the size of its container, so did Arlene’s addiction to this holiday. With each new house more and more witches showed up (and I don’t mean her…show more content… Arlene eagerly adapted to the new technology and quickly supersized the decorations that surrounded me. Witches that once only stared at me from the mantle screamed and reached out anytime I walked by. Skeletons popped out of coffins whenever I sneezed. The phone would ring (yes, an actual phone attached to the wall) and Frankenstein would start to hula dance to a ukulele version of The Monster Mash. The slightest movement, the most inconsequential sound, would cause the dead to rise, ghosts to howl, and witches to take…show more content… It was shrill and harsh and mocked my attempt of entry into my own house. The laughter came from the disembodied head that hung between the kitchen and living room. The head that watched over the menagerie of evil that was now my home. The black eye patch and red bandana gave away who he was – the laughing skeleton pirate head.
I hated that fucking pirate head.
Of all the decorations his was the most irksome. A floating head that laughed at your every move gets to you after a while. I was forever bumping my head on him and he would swing back and forth while his skeleton jaw opened and closed while that hideous laughed poured out.
Fortunately, he was not long for this world.
One night I woke up and stumbled down the stairs to get a drink of water. I guarded each step so not to awake the house of horrors that stood waiting for the slightest sound. I made it safely through the living room in the dark but momentarily forgot about my hanging companion. The skeleton pirate head hit me as I entered the kitchen and his laughter exploded in the room. It was mere instinct that caused me to raise my right hand and, like the shot putter I once was, come up from the hip and follow through until my fist connected with the jackal and sent him flying through the kitchen, landing squarely in the kitchen
