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I don't know why--year after year--I buy candy for Halloween.
It's my nightmare scenario. The worst possible things that could happen to me happen every Halloween. It's not just bad luck. It's not like I happen to have a terrible day October 31st year over year because of random coincidence. Halloween is my nightmare because I am not just afraid of monsters and ghosts.
I am afraid, period.
Germs horrify me. I wash my hands three times per hour without exception. I am awake most days about 14 hours. I go through a lot of antibacterial liquid soap. On the rare day when I'm outside my first floor apartment here in the city I carry around numerous squeeze bottles of alcohol-laden antibacterial hand gel. When I touch something--sure to be filthy--I use a dollop of my favorite thing in the whole world, and the crawling itch beneath my skin abates.
You see, that's why Halloween sends me to the back recesses of my vacuumed, sterilized bedroom. Because of the germs that come with the kids.
The idea of opening the door of my sanctum and leaving it ajar while a veritable passel of foreign little beasts stand there, flu-ridden mouths agape, grubby, dirty fingers grabbing at the candy bucket over and over and over…
I vomit when I think too much about it, which sends me into a spiral of cleaning and scrubbing until the bile and undigested food has been erased from wherever it landed when the yellow nastiness escaped me. Part of the reason why I eat a very bland diet. Not only will my stomach not tolerate it, but when I do lose my stomach due to anxiety, I find it easier to tolerate a less colorful and odiferous mess.
Halloween is my nightmare.
But every year, year over year I spend days building up the nerve to go outside for the sole purpose of strutting down the street as fast as I can--without looking like a freak, of course--to the local corner store where I purchase two bags of what I think the children will want that year.
This year's walk to the store was particularly frightening. Several young men made eye contact with me, and I had to open the stores dirty door by touching the metal handle with my gloved hand. I threw the gloves away in the trash bin outside my apartment door when I returned.
I used a piece of paper towel to select a bag of fruity chews, and a bag of caramel-filled chocolates. I thought at the time that would eliminate the risk of any unhappy children. The last thing my fragile mind can wrap itself around is the vision of a snot-nosed little werewolf stomping his feet and getting God-knows-what on my kitchen floor.
That vision is only slightly less alarming and body-clenching than opening the door for the child in the first place.
It's my nightmare scenario. The worst possible things that could happen to me happen every Halloween. It's not just bad luck. It's not like I happen to have a terrible day October 31st year over year because of random coincidence. Halloween is my nightmare because I am not just afraid of monsters and ghosts.
I am afraid, period.
Germs horrify me. I wash my hands three times per hour without exception. I am awake most days about 14 hours. I go through a lot of antibacterial liquid soap. On the rare day when I'm outside my first floor apartment here in the city I carry around numerous squeeze bottles of alcohol-laden antibacterial hand gel. When I touch something--sure to be filthy--I use a dollop of my favorite thing in the whole world, and the crawling itch beneath my skin abates.
You see, that's why Halloween sends me to the back recesses of my vacuumed, sterilized bedroom. Because of the germs that come with the kids.
The idea of opening the door of my sanctum and leaving it ajar while a veritable passel of foreign little beasts stand there, flu-ridden mouths agape, grubby, dirty fingers grabbing at the candy bucket over and over and over…
I vomit when I think too much about it, which sends me into a spiral of cleaning and scrubbing until the bile and undigested food has been erased from wherever it landed when the yellow nastiness escaped me. Part of the reason why I eat a very bland diet. Not only will my stomach not tolerate it, but when I do lose my stomach due to anxiety, I find it easier to tolerate a less colorful and odiferous mess.
Halloween is my nightmare.
But every year, year over year I spend days building up the nerve to go outside for the sole purpose of strutting down the street as fast as I can--without looking like a freak, of course--to the local corner store where I purchase two bags of what I think the children will want that year.
This year's walk to the store was particularly frightening. Several young men made eye contact with me, and I had to open the stores dirty door by touching the metal handle with my gloved hand. I threw the gloves away in the trash bin outside my apartment door when I returned.
I used a piece of paper towel to select a bag of fruity chews, and a bag of caramel-filled chocolates. I thought at the time that would eliminate the risk of any unhappy children. The last thing my fragile mind can wrap itself around is the vision of a snot-nosed little werewolf stomping his feet and getting God-knows-what on my kitchen floor.
That vision is only slightly less alarming and body-clenching than opening the door for the child in the first place.
