How to Clean Up all that Crap after Halloween
Cleaning up after Halloween is certainly a tough feat. It’s perfectly natural to want the Halloween spirit to last as long as possible, and bask in the frivolity of the holiday, with its costumes and candy and children and fun. Why, it was just the other day that you jumped back frightened in a haunted house, and remember how happy that child was when you gave him the rest of your candy? Well, wake up! You need to move the hell on with your life and stop living in the past! I talked to your sister the other day. She’s concerned. We’re all worried. No one wants to see you like this.
To help everyone out, below is a definitive guide to cleaning up after Halloween. Don’t make me come over there with the white coats.
Pumpkins
The pumpkin is the most overt sign that you still haven’t cleaned things after Halloween, because it lets all of your neighbors know exactly how lazy you are. “Unbelievable,” they’ll say, as they walk their dog by your house. “And did you see their eaves? Our eaves don’t look like that. We have great eaves. Best eaves in neighborhoods.” Man, that fictional couple sure cares about eaves a lot!
The problem here is that your pumpkin is a form of organic matter, and such things tend to decompose when left out, though time is sort of on your side. If you leave your pumpkin out, it will begin to decompose, until the weather gets cold, which will essentially freeze it in that state well into February. Unfortunately, when the weather warms up, your pumpkin will resume the decomposition process and eventually collapse in on itself in a pile of rotten, putrid, mushy pumpkin leavings. Of course, that would make for a pretty scary pumpkin next year. You might as well leave it out.
Decorations
My house is a graveyard for old decorations. In addition to Halloween decorations from years passed, I have broken Christmas lights, empty fireworks canisters, and political signs from previously decided elections (really thought that Wendell Willkie was going to win). Everyone tells me to “take them down already,” but decorations are meant to be an expression of yourself. In a way, that two-year-old, maggot-ridden pumpkin on my front porch represents who I am inside. Why should I change for “society”?
Cleaning up decorations totally depends on how elaborate your decorations are. If you put up a plain white sign and just wrote “Halloween” on it, that shouldn’t be too much trouble. If, however, you completely transformed your house past the point of no return, it’s best to leave it the way it is, even if it destroys your property value. Or, start a very controlled fire.
Tree Covered in Toilet Paper
Again: fire. And stop handing out apples, or rejecting me (I’m looking at you, Stacy!).
Candy
Look, even if all that you have left is the worst candy available (candy corn, hard mint candies, anything with coconut), you’re still going to eventually eat it out of desperation. If you have “discipline,” whatever that is, you could instead walk around the neighborhood and put the horrible leftover candy in the mailboxes belonging to neighbors that you don’t like, especially those people with perfect eaves. I hate them!
Costumes
Costumes are like wedding dresses; if you wear them anytime besides the day that they’re needed, you look crazy. All the more reason to keep them. Wearing your Batman or Chason Gordon costume on random days takes balls. “Look, I just wanted to dress like Batman today,” you can say to your prying coworkers. “Is that a problem?” Disposing of costumes is easy for me, because I make absolutely no effort with costumes. One time I hung a license plate around my neck and told people I was a car. You get the idea.
Ghosts
Ghosts are the hardest item to clean up after Halloween because they can fly through walls and disappear. You need more than garbage bags and Twist Ties to get rid of them. I suggest hiring a paranormal investigator. They’ll do a bunch of things that tend annoy ghosts and people, like ringing bells and being Whoopi Goldberg. You’ll probably end up discovering the long-dead body of someone who died a horrible death in your house (I told you not to buy that house). Put it next to the costumes and decorations and pumpkins in the back of a truck and drop it off at the dump. Or, try fire.
Chason Gordon
Copyright 2013
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