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Abstract Academic: Give Halloween back to the kids

You all disgust me.

That’s right. You disgust me, with your sexy kitten costumes, your lifelike front-porch models of Freddy Krueger disemboweling a teen, and your bowls of chili labeled repulsively as “Zombie Stew” or “Boiled Trick-or-Treater.”

You people, you . . . adults . . . who saw all these children running around with bags of candy, wearing ghost and princess costumes, and thought, “Kids have all the fun. Let’s take back Halloween for ourselves!” You are all just the worst.

Whatever happened to Halloween being a day for the children? What made a country of well-meaning, logical adults decide that they were tired of Halloween as it was? Where did all that whimsy go, that childlike merriment, and why has it been replaced by this desire to put fake blood all over everything (literally, everything — on floors, on food, on chandeliers)?

But it’s happened. Adults have stolen Halloween from the children. No longer do we watch “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!” No. We just have “It’s the Brain-Sucking Death Squash, Charlie Brown!” Or “It’s Syphilis, Charlie Brown!” Or maybe “You Got Possessed By A Demon and Chopped Up Linus in His Sleep and Fed Him to Snoopy, Charlie Brown!”

Adults have ruined this innocent, clean holiday, just like they did when they invented it. Those pretentious Celtic pagans, always trying to force ritualistic human sacrifice on their neighbors, like vegans pimping hummus and pita chips at a Super Bowl party.

The Irish ruin everything. They ruined Halloween, with their harvest celebrations and bonfires; they ruined the cultural unity of Great Britain; they’ve ruined perfectly good names like Malley, Neill and Sullivan by corrupting them with Os and apostrophes, and they’ve ruined several of my English classes by telling my professors that James Joyce is a well-respected writer.

(Editor’s note: Please disregard everything this columnist says. We love the Irish and their contributions to America. Except for when they let Pierce Brosnan be James Bond. That just didn’t work. And Denis Leary is really obnoxious.)

Anyway, I know the adults (and the Irish!) have ruined Halloween, because my grandparents happen to be both of those things, and they are some of the worst offenders. Beneath that bright exterior of butterscotch and cheerful sweaters dwells a pair of tortured, sadistic deviants.

Every year for Halloween, my grandma invites all the family over for a dinner. Because it’s Grandma’s house, I’m expecting some pot roast, or hot dogs, or tater tot casserole, or maybe some canned peaches.

But no.

Where the pot roast once sat now sits a steaming pile of meat labeled “Braised Toddler.” Where there were hot dogs, there are now “Bloody Fingers” (with some help from a bottle of ketchup). Tater tot casserole? Nope. Just “Toes in Brain Sauce.” And the peaches are just “Chilled Slugs.”

I know, I know, it’s not real. But the power of suggestion does some crazy things to my mind, and I always go home hungry, especially when the only things to eat are avocado soup (“Pond Scum”), chocolate pudding (“Mud”) and green beans (they were unlabeled, but green beans are just gross).

And it’s not just the grossly imaginative mislabeling of food that’s ruined Halloween for the children. Since when did regular, hardworking men and women decide that this was the one day in the year where it’s OK to forget to put on half their clothes? How many nurses really go around dressed like they just stepped out of a Whitesnake music video?

Adults, it’s time to give Halloween back to the kids. You’ve had your fun with those rubber meat cleavers, topical costumes (please, don’t dress like a Binder Full of Women or Honey Boo Boo) and the “Saw” franchise.

Put on that warm jacket and go trick-or-treating with your children. Let’s have fewer zombies of “The Walking Dead” variety, and more of the “Scooby-Doo” variety (“Zoinks, Scooby! That’s no zombie; it’s Old Man Shumpert, the landlord!”). Hang up the sexy bunny suit. Cut back on the gore, and tell some spooky, more suspenseful short stories instead.

And, for heaven’s sake, take the label off of the tater tot casserole. I mean, it’s already tater tot casserole.

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