Scary Season

I love Halloween! I love just about everything about it, too. When I met my husband, he told me that it was his favorite holiday, which I thought was quite clever. In fact, we officially started dating in late October and we saw Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein on our first date. I did think it was odd that the first Halloween we spent together he didn't dress up, but we walked around the Castro district back when hundreds of thousands of people used to show up for the party. Maybe they still do, I wouldn't know.

Anyway, I feel a little lame-o since our only decoration - so far - is a skeleton hanging on our front door, especially since most of our neighbors have gone all out with the spider webs, fake tombstones, body parts and crashed witches in their yards.

Walking the dog today, I was admiring a yard with two skeletal hands emerging from the grass when I tripped over a dead body. You know when you step on something that gives a little and you know it's not right? It was quite shocking that the body would be laying in the street unmolested, perhaps a little warm still. And my dog didn't even notice it! Not that he's in the habit of being attracted by the dead. 

Considering that it was amidst so many holiday decorations, it would be easy to imagine that it was part of the scenery or even fake. But no. It was definitely a dead thing and it was very real. I kept going, ignoring the poor squirrel because I wouldn't know what to do with it. Should I have carried it home with me to put in my trash bin - or better yet, perform a small burial and funeral ceremony to commemorate what was most certainly a short life?

I did nothing. I walked on thinking about diseases that jump from animal host to human and tried to recall that rodent-borne one's name. Is it Heppa? Hanta? Hinta? (Hantavirus) And my reward for my cowardice? Further along in my walk I came across a small patch of fur. It looked like some poor critter was scalped. Very disturbing. Very apropos, unfortunately, in this scary season. My lame-o decorations seem just a little bit more fine now.