Monday, October 25, 2010

The Prude is Afraid






To many in the world, this week begins the most truly frightening time of the year. Worse than tax season. Worse than shopping with a toddler. Worse than the weeping and gnashing of teeth heard in the frozen turkey aisle of the grocery store the day before Thanksgiving.

This is the week that leads up to October 31.

You may know it as All-Saints Eve, which is followed by All Saints Day ( if you are in the Western as opposed to the Byzantine branch of the Roman Catholic Church- The Prude has done her homework) which in TURN is followed by All Souls Day which means you get 3 holidays in a row. As far as The Prude can tell these days are not celebrated with candy, although in Portugal children go door to door to receive cakes, nuts and pomegranates, all of which have been thoroughly checked for razor blades, straight pins and illegal substances. The real celebration is in the Philippines, where you spend these days at the cemetery tidying up graves.

The good Reformation Day-ists among us can dress up like Martin Luther and have family fun reciting each of the 95 theses. In Latin. We plan to do it while eating bratwurst.

If you like to dress in Druid robes and chant around Stonehenge, you have most likely have wandered into the wrong blog.

Some of you may be full-fledged Halloween revelers who spend more on orange and black decorations, fake blood and rubber skeletons than the entire GNP of many small nations.

You may choose to ignore the day totally and just refer to it as ‘November First Eve’.

Your Prude used the day to indulge her creative compulsions to dress her boys up, to indulge her thrifty Dutch nature by getting free snack food via her children’s trick-or-treat bags, and to indulge her chocolate cravings by ‘examining’ the bags first for dangerous substances but actually for her favorite candy bars.

But The Prude has found that, no matter what one’s attitude toward October 31, we can all be spine-tingling scared at one time or another. This week we will-usually via photo-journalism, examine some of the truly frightening stuff of the universe.

First she needs to take care of the task that almost always sends her screaming into a corner in terror. Quarterly reports.
What scary thing do YOU have on your plate today?

5 comments:

Lori Lipsky said...

Cleaning toilets. Maybe I'll get to it, and maybe I won't. Either way, thanks for giving me my first laugh of the day.

Beth said...

Squeezing into my bathing suit for a much-needed warm-water exercise class!!

Tammy said...

I am a Halloween party pooper. Not due to any moral high ground (although I respect those who choose to ignore it), but more due to my utter lack of creativity. Five, well actually three now, children who need costumes is more than I can bear. Carving pumpkins with 5 boys is a nightmare (very scary indeed)... and I laugh out loud when my sons ask me each why we don't have Halloween decorations up.

But today I am most afraid of helping my son get started on his science fair project. (Science fairs scare me even more than halloween and if I had given it more thought, I would never have had so many children.)

The Prude said...

Lori, Tuesday's post is dedicated to you!

Beth, you win. That is the most frightening thing I can imagine mself doing.

Tammy, a mother of 5 boys knows the meaning of true terror...

Danielle said...

I love the photo of the three boys! Too cute! I need to see more Klumpers family photos!! :)