Halloween decorations in the city: Stick a piece of black duct tape (provided by your super) to your apartment door so trick or treaters know to ring your doorbell.

Halloween decorations in the suburbs: Take out a small loan, drive to Party City, scoop up absolutely everything in the Halloween aisle and dump it on your front lawn.

The Halloween decorations are something fierce out here.  Skeletons coming out of the ground, ghosts swinging from the trees and devils emerging from the rooftops.

I realize that it’s time to get my game on. So I head down to Party City and buy three paper lanterns that light up. Ok, I guess I’m semi getting my game on.

I hang them in my windowsill and they look very Halloweeny in an understated way. Until one of them falls. And then the bulbs burn out about 2 hours later.

pumpkins 2

So I replace the bulbs and the batteries, rehang the rogue lantern and relaunch my Halloween display.

And the bulbs burn out again. And now I’m out of bulbs. And batteries.

Hmm… this is more effort than I anticipated.

I return the dumb lanterns and this time put my Halloween reputation in the hands of ghosts that plug in.

ghosts

But we still have the lamest house on the block when it comes to decorating, so Rick decides to buy some orange lights for our font steps.

pink halloween lights

Except they turn out to be pink.

I know because I can actually see them and because Dylan says, “I like the new lights. I love pink.”

But it’s confusing because these lights did come in a big orange box from Target with the label, “Halloween Lights” and not with the more appropriate label of “Valentine’s Day Lights.”

But just to absolutely confirm that we are now the only family on the block with pink Halloween lights, I ask  one more source… a guy soliciting for money for the ASPCA. He comes to my door and he’s actually very cute but I don’t give him any money because I just want to sit down and watch “Cougar Town.” I know, my priorities are not impressive.

As he’s leaving, I say, “So can I ask you something? What color are these lights?”

“Pink. With a tinge of orange.”

Alright. I can live with a tinge of orange. Happy Halloween.

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