4 Things You Are Regretting On The Day After Halloween
If my calculations are correct, whatever you did last night, during the darkest, sweatiest hours of All Hallows Eve, you're probably regretting it now.
I hope you little bastards enjoyed yourselves. Because if my calculations are correct, whatever you did last night, during the darkest, sweatiest hours of All Hallows Eve, you're probably regretting it now. How could I know this, unless I was a witch of some sort? Answer: I'm a witch of some sort, specifically, a statistician. You see, it turns out that the day after Halloween sees an enormous spike in instances of massive, rocking-in-the-fetal-position displays of regret. Knowing that my readers are not prone to sober decision making or fudge-restraint, I can safely conclude that you did something wrong last night, and are feeling it today.
"uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhgh"
Obviously, Halloween is a different holiday for different people, their experiences varying based on their age. The young trick-or-treater in their store-bought Hannah Montana costume has a vastly different experience than the 20-something hipster going to a party in their store-bought Hannah Montana costume. It should come as no surprise then that the biggest post-Halloween regrets also vary significantly by age. I've listed these regrets below, because that's kind of what we do around here, and also because list-based material is easily digestible for the hungover comedy patron. Note that this list of regrets is sorted by age group, so depending on when you were born or your personal mental development, you'll likely find one of these items ringing particularly true to you on this remorseful November morning.
Ages 3+: Ate Too Much Candy
For people of trick-or-treating age, Halloween is one of the first real experiences they'll have with with the fallout of their own excesses, in this case, from eating too much candy. It's a hangover for children, but less morally troubling; something wholesome and ready for prime time audiences.
Recall the controversial episode of Diff'rent Strokes when Arnold drank a wine cooler and held a knife to Mr. Drummond's throat -- aired only once and now no longer spoken of.
For young children, the very notion of "regret" might be a little fuzzy. A child sick on low-grade milk chocolate can sense that something's wrong, and may even be told by his parents that his tummy ache is related to him eating two thousand sawdust-based Milk Duds the night before. But given the all-around deliciousness of candy, it's impossible for a child to grasp the very concept of "too much candy."
"Too much what? Bullshit mom. Yeah, I said it."
Ages 12+: Low On Digits
As children get older, they develop a curious aversion to the activities which only a few months earlier would have caused them great joy. Whether due to peer pressure, hormones or the urging of the liberal media, these children choose to leave behind wholesome trick-or-treating and take up more sinister Halloween pastimes, like wearing dark clothes and doing domestic terrorism. Why teenagers seem to take such delight in busting up other people's shit is still a mystery, although when queried, many behavioral scientists will cough and point at the phrase "Because They're Dicks" on their whiteboard full of brainstorming ideas.
Here, two scientists expose a teenage male to high levels of radiation because they hate him.
Industrialized teenagers, like those found in the typical North American suburbs, will often make use of fireworks during their Halloween night dick-being. How they use these fireworks varies, although it's usually a safe bet it won't be per the manufacturers sarcastically offered safety instructions. Throwing explosives at their friends seems to be a popular choice, perhaps out of a primitive instinct to thin out weak members of the herd. And because the weakest members of the teenage herd are the ones least aware of the quality-control issues in Chinese firework factories, the morning after every Halloween usually reveals a few teenagers who have traded fingers for cautionary stories they can relate during public speaking engagements.
Ages 17+: Halloween Party Fouls
College-aged children will eventually grow out of their primitive desire to wreck other things, and instead become focused on wrecking themselves. This ethanol-fueled self-destruction is generally less disfiguring than handling small explosive devices, although it can still leave some pretty gruesome human wreckage.
Neither of these people will become president.
A typical Halloween for these young adults will involve donning a hilarious or sexy costume, attending a party full of like-minded sex/comedy enthusiasts, drinking their faces off and trying to convince their cohorts to go to bed with them.
"WHO REQUIRES ORAL PLAY?"
But when pursuing hot and hilarious young things through a haze of alcohol, mistakes are inevitable. These can include: - Barfing on yourself - Barfing on your prospective mate - Threatening to barf on your prospective mate - Getting naked on yourself - Threatening to barf on your naked self. While all of these behaviors have been worthy of regret before, in recent years they've become even more cringe worthy, what with the advent of cell phone cameras and YouTube. When clips of you holding open the waistband of your Power Ranger tights and vomiting into them like you're trying to put out a fire make it online, your regret is going to last well past November 1st.
Ages 45+: Shot a Kid
Eventually you'll get tired of the drinking and getting shot down scene, and may even meet a partner who accepts you for all of your nude vomiting faults, or perhaps more likely, one that just doesn't know about them. But regardless of whether your relationship is built on ignorance or lies, you will eventually settle down. This can mean marriage and kids, or it can simply mean the responsibility which comes with ownership. Assuming you're not vomiting away every nickel, you will eventually accumulate enough belongings that you'll want to keep them all in one place. A nice shopping cart at first, and then possibly a house.
And every Halloween, teenagers will come around and shit on your stuff. Sometimes figuratively, but also sometimes not. This will, for lack of a strong enough word, make you unhappy.
"I hope that's figurative shit I'm smelling."
So one Halloween, you'll find yourself lurking in the bushes in front of your house, armed with a garden hose, waiting to douse young punks with righteous, chilly justice. This is fine and normal, and except for the fact that the children will spot you and fire roman candles at you until you cry, is a pretty good plan. Where the plan falls apart is when you rush back in to the house to retrieve your grandfather's old service pistol, the one he bequeathed to you with the promise that you not do anything stupid with it. You've broken that promise once, naming the gun Eleanor, and that night you'll break it again, when your warning shot successfully warns several children by clipping one of them.The morning after, you're going to feel awful about this, and about how you probably should have called an ambulance or applied pressure to the wound or done anything other than sprint into the night. When the police find you, prone on the roof of your house, sweating, it will take some doing to coax you down. But, weary of the paperwork that happens every Halloween from incidents exactly like this, they'll let you off with a warning. "It was just a teenager," one of the officers will say quietly to you. "He'll heal." That will be mostly true, 60 percent true it turns out, at least when measured in the mobility of his right shoulder. Which makes taking out the trigger slack on someone who can't drive yet is surprisingly the least regretful item on this list. Being responsible for the loss of 40 percent of a dink's shoulder mobility is clearly worthy of some remorse, but as it won't really limit his career prospects in the taco industry, it's something you'll find surprisingly easy to live with. You learned your lesson, he learned his, and furthermore, it will give the young thug an interesting story to impress girls with when he gets older.
