Smiling Faces
If you love giving out candy, that's important, and you're a blessing. However, sometimes, you just want to go to bed, or be high, and not worry if some kid dressed as Harry Connick Jr. or Margaret Orr is going to ring your doorbell at 10:45 p.m. looking for KitKats.
There are so many reasons you might not want trick-or-treaters on Halloween: small baby trying to sleep, cursed by a witch as a child, bought candy but now you want to keep most of it, sex, etc. There are so many reasons.
If you want no trick or treaters and you don't like Halloween, you just turn off the lights and don't decorate. What if you love Halloween and wish to participate in spirit but not in reality? You need to carve a pumpkin so off-putting that the kids, and their parents, take one look at that thing and keep it moving down the sidewalk. It's like a doormat that says, "Welcome to Hell," to ward off missionaries. Make your decorations work for you.
Some such pumpkins might include:
A Scary Clown or the LaLaurie Mansion
What's scarier? A clown who kidnaps and eats children, or a rich white woman who owned slaves? That's a trick question. They're the same thing. Scary kinda morphs on Halloween from corruption and bad infrastructure to fake blood and spiders, but not at your house. Normally being scared is good on Halloween, but there's a line. No candy bar is big enough to risk your child being scarred for life. Interestingly enough, the scariest actual thing here is riding a skateboard.
A Cat Smoking a Cigarette and/or Doing Whippets
This is cute but also says, "Not for kids." People see a cat and they think, "Cute," but now it's
smoking. What does that mean? Is he French? No. There's no beret. Is he in a union? What if he's just smoking because he likes it and thinks it's cool? Not for my kids. You can also go a little further and give the cat a little spoon and a lighter, to scare the older kids as well, or some whippet canisters. If you just bend down on almost any street in the Bywater, you'll find some.
An Entergy Bill
Bastards.
Anyone from WWE or WildKat Wrestling
This is a nice one because it's versatile. You can do a guy breaking his neck on a chair, a woman choking another woman out, someone kicking someone's head as they jump—kind of whatever you want. Adults get really scared when they think of neck injuries. Neck injuries for adults are like Pennywise for kids.
A Gun
Self-explanatory.
Falcons Logo
Also self-explanatory.
The Cast of ER
This is just kind of because they deserve more recognition. 331 episodes and 15 seasons? That's a huge accomplishment, and no one talks about it at all. When was the last time you heard someone reference ER? Probably not in 20 years, unless, maybe, they were saying something about it because of Noah Wylie's new medical drama—good for him. But even then, it was minimal, and before that, there was nothing. They deserve so much more.
A Quote from the Movie Office Space
It sends a Bat-Signal to other adults that you don't really like to do all that much. "This house likes hanging out. Let's not bother them," they'll say. "Why don't we try Bayou Hot Wings instead? The one by the UPS store. I heard they're really good," they'll say.
The Word "Lame"
The word "lame" is such a strong repellant at any age but especially for those 17 and under. There is simply nothing worse. Other insults pick an aspect of you to ridicule, but "lame" encompasses everything and rejects it all. Kids naturally stay away, correctly sensing its power. A pumpkin reading, "This House is Lame," confuses, repels, and lets people know there's no candy here, even though there might be.
Rachel Ray
There's a darkness surrounding Rachel Ray that seems unidentifiable. Is it her inability to sit in silence, or her near compulsory references to her grandpa Emanuel? Why has she memorized that many recipes for eggplant? Why is she always cooking for so many people, but it feels like she's alone at Christmas? Has she ever used a muffuletta sexually? Why does it feel like the answer might be yes?
Open-Toed Shoes on Bourbon Street
This one would be hard to carve, but it'd be worth it because it's the scariest of them all.
We've reached the end of our suggestions, but, really, the sky's the limit. There's obviously darker roads, or more banal or more extreme, but the general takeaway is: let your pumpkins speak for you. Let them say something about you and your house that makes children and adults alike stop walking and go, "Whoa, something is really wrong here—outside of a normal range, and it's probably nothing, but I don't want to risk it," or even just, "Nope." You can't put a price on peace but if the cost is actually one or two deranged pumpkins, that's a price we'll gladly pay. But, honestly, if you don't live in Lakeview or Navarre, you probably don't have to worry about this at all.
