I Choose Darkness

by Jenny Lawson

I’ve always thought that there are two kinds of people. There are those of us who love the holidays and those of us who are incredibly lazy. By “incredibly lazy” I mean the kind of person who judges their own merit by the sizzle reel everyone else seems to have on Instagram, highlighting their ability to use an oven, their more than four plates, and/or, for some odd reason, their matching pajamas. And while I envy the energy, determination, ability to manipulate social media, and shared insanity of those people, it’s become very clear to my family and me that we—well, we are not those people.

Opening paragraph

Perhaps it was different where you lived, but in West Texas, most of us had to make our own costumes out of what we had in the house, which is why so many of us were dressed as hobos.

Looking back now, it seems strange that I spent so much of my childhood on alert for roving satanists and unmarked quicksand, neither of which ended up being nearly as much of a problem in my real life as I had been led to believe.

This was a gentle and naive time before the internet, when all our information came from urban legends and terrifying local news reports.

Actually, that’s not entirely true because you could go to the Halloween half aisle at the Piggly Wiggly and pick out one of the five available store-bought costumes. These mass-market getups consisted of a small, hard-plastic mask that had a tiny mouth slit, which would cut the shit out of your lips, and scratchy eye holes to give you corneal abrasions, accompanied by a large plastic garbage bag printed with the image of what an actual costume would look like if you weren’t wearing a garbage bag. You would wear this garbage bag and people would use their imagination, I guess, and I desperately wanted one of these terrible, cheap, shitty costumes. I’ve heard rumors that, in other towns, there were larger selections, but in our town, it was Spider-Man, G.I. Joe, E.T., Princess, and Bride. (Just to clarify, “Princess” was one costume. “Bride” was another.

Mine was the Boba Fett trash bag

(We didn’t watch G.I. Joe because it came on at the same time as Monchhichis, so we made some assumptions.)

!!!!! How did you learn about live wires and fires and bullying? But especially the live wires??!

Again. Not being paid by the word. Me: I know but, like, this seems important and is probably the most educational part of this whole essay. Did you know that pumpkins were berries? My editor: For real? I thought they were gourds. Me: They are squashes, gourds, AND fruits. They are the most trying-too-hard of all the foods. My editor: Wait, does that mean watermelons are berries? Are cucumbers gourds? Me: YES AND YES. ALL BETS ARE OFF. TRUST NOTHING.