Weekly Shot #7

Halfway to Halloween

One day you’re in college, enjoying the fruits of your parent’s labor, tossing away their hard-earned money at a party instead of studying for your midterm exam, the next you are a parent of two and your brain is in a blender that has no signs of stopping. This is how quick time passes. I remember like it was yesterday meeting my wife and enjoying the entire summer we met lounging and drinking and now we are strapped down with a mortgage and we barely see each other (one’s chasing, one’s feeding). I don’t think anyone would argue that time does indeed fly. The older we get the quicker it goes.

So when I turned on my TV run with the Amazon Fire Stick to the harrowing message that we were “halfway to Halloween” I almost puked. I put myself, my wife, and my daughter in dinosaur costumes, blinked, and six months went by. This was obviously an ad to get me and my family to watch some horror movies but instead it put me into a deep dark depression that I am still trying to crawl my way out of. The saying “the days are long but the years are short” has never hit harder.

My first question is why in the world would I want to watch horror movies in the middle of spring? Who in their right mind saw that ad and was like “oh man! only six months to Halloween, I better watch Neve Campbell running from Ghostface” when it’s 70 degrees and sunny out. I don’t know how much money Amazon is losing by holding on to the rights of Halloween movies during the wrong time of the year and I don’t care. Things are looking up, the ground is defrosting, the sun is out when I leave work, and I don’t want to watch Mike Meyers the killer I want to watch Mike Meyers star as the International Man of Mystery (Austin Powers, for the uninitiated).

Imagine it’s a hot day in July, you’ve just sat your ass on a beach for six plus hours, your skin is tanned and taut, you’ve gotten an overload of vitamin D, your insides are smiling, your outsides are smiling, and you’re about to sit down to watch a movie with your wife but Amazon advertises “halfway to Christmas” and starts playing “It’s A Wonderful Life”. I don’t know about you but the last thing I want to hear is that little old angel’s voice telling me that George Bailey is in a predicament when it’s pool season. I’ve switched out eggnog for tequila, I’ve traded in butter cookies for watermelon. Give me ads for things I want.

I’d love to get the data on how many people actually clicked on this ad. It’s got to be less than 10 total. And you already know what those ten looked like – dark eyeliner, HotTopic t-shirt, black nails, pale skin. These ten people are living all 12 months like it’s Halloween. They probably didn’t even need the ad. They had it all marked on their calendars. I don’t want to disparage the Halloween people too much. I respect them though I don’t understand them. If I can watch Harry Potter for the 3000^th time and expect not to be made fun of then I will do the same for them. (yea right, of course I get made fun of. I’m thirty-three years old and I can quote the entire Harry Potter series. But I don’t care. HP4L).

I’m very anti-Halloween myself. I do not like monsters, I do not like costumes, I do not like gore, I do not like being scared. Being alive is fright inducing enough, why add to it? I make my wife go answer the door for trick or treaters for Christ’s sake. I’d rather not watch a horror movie that scares me so bad I can’t stop looking out of my windows trying to make sure that Jason isn’t alive and well in my neighborhood. But even with my aversions, I don’t find it necessary to inundate anyone with ads for Halloween six months in advance.

Now for the depression it caused…that’s a me thing. I can’t fault Amazon for that. It’s a personal problem. I’m the type of guy whose vibe is completely swayed based on setting. I read books based on the time of year. Summer is for the Travis McGee series. Winters are for Russians. Fall is for Jim Harrison. I like my internal clock set with the external clock. So when Amazon throws a wrench at me and reminds me that in six short months it’ll be dark by five and I’ll be preparing to empty my bank account on Christmas gifts, I just can’t handle it. Let me live in the moment Amazon. Let me live.