The Crap Box - Halloween Special

(B. Schatz)

The Crap Box.
An exploration of the hard-to-find gems and the discarded thoughts better left un-thought.

Welcome to The Crap Box.

What I hope this will become is a venue for anyone who becomes a contributor at this site to trot out a dusty old relic from their files, and ruminate on the thought process behind it.

This time around in The Crap Box, I’m cracking out some vintage Soupy Toasterson, going all the way back to Monday, February 14th, 2005 to bring you the aptly titled Holiday Special: Soupy Gets VD.

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Soupy Gets VD – A Holiday Special
Soupy Toasterson sits at his computer, on Valentine's Day, and shrugs. Obviously, he's come to expect being alone for the holidays, more or less: it seems to be the line life has given him to tow, so tow it he will. However, he's not going to take it sitting down.

The computer is turned on and the browser window is showing a little box in which he can post to his blog. Despite being a freakishly self-contained person, he's going to prop his life on a pedestal for all to see and judge. The irony is not lost on him.

There seems to be something odd about Valentine's Day. It makes people think of people and things in ways that they'd rather not, all because someone decided that they felt like some candy, or that they wanted a reason to show someone else their love. Which is stupid. Valentine's is just another day on the calendar, and just another moment in the sun, no different than any other day or moment.

Yet everyone makes a huge deal about the day. Even I've been making a big deal of the day, and I would rather not. The question is... why? Why are we compelled to do these crazy acts of love on this day? Why are we trapped into doing the bidding of some big card company who, for all intensive purposes, is mind raping us on roller skates in order to get us to buy their stuff?

I don't have an answer for that. If I did, I wouldn't be thinking about how I'm currently not dating someone, and how it eats me up inside, and how this day, is making things worse, because I feel this innate compulsion to do something, to do anything, but I can't for various reasons.

It shouldn't drive me crazy. None of this should drive me crazy, but after nearly five years of wondering and waiting, and screwing up, and getting back on track, and the deep freezes and the pleasant thaws... I think the thought of having one day, just to smile and to stop with all of the crazy and all of the wondering and everything like that... it would be nice. It'd be a nice break from my life of sitting there, watching a seemingly endless stream of romantic movies, all the while unceremoniously and somewhat perversely eating a bag of chips while the two star-crossed lovers on the screen go through their own rocky road of love that'll lead to that inevitable end: that kiss, that'll just make everything better, and make the whole world seem perfect.

It'd be nice to take a glimpse at my own little happy ending, even if for a moment. It'd be nice to stop watching the people on the screen have their own little gloriously Hollywood ending, because it's all just a big ruse... a fake-out of people who have no real feelings for each other making the rest of us who long for something they can just pretend to have...

It'd be nice to have all those things, just for one day, even if that's all I get. But really... it won't happen. I know it won't happen. And I am actually being a complete asshole for posting this... this message where everyone can see it, because it will eventually get back to her, and when it does, it's just going to screw things up like I seem to have the tendency to do because really... how fair is this message? This "oh-woe-is-me" message... this plea for her to see us the way I can see us...

It's not fair at all, and it's an exercise I'm doing only to make myself feel better. So in the end, do I really deserve her love and attention? No. No, I don't. That's why I'm alone this Valentine's Day. And that's why I'll be alone after it. But at the very least, for now, I get to have my time. My glimmer, my day on the calendar, my moment in the sun. And in the end, it will be what sustains me until one day... hopefully, I will get to have more.

Hopefully.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone.

-Soupy Toasterson

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Now, you’re probably asking me why I would trot out the one and only Valentine’s Day Special that I had in my files out on Halloween. Couldn’t I bring out something spooky? Something with some kind of horror bent to it?

Well, yeah, I could’ve. But I have some issues with Valentine’s Day that relate directly to Halloween, and thought now would be a great time to talk about it.

You see… I think Halloween and Valentine’s Day are the same damn holiday, only with slightly different connotations. Let’s look at the specifics, shall we?

Halloween, is a night for the ghosts and ghouls of times gone by to come alive and haunt the living. It’s when all the creepies come out and taunt the lonely, because they know that no one in their right mind is going to believe them when they find more people and start screaming about ghosties and whatnot. It is meant to induce fear, and can be quite scary given the right environment.

Now, conversely, Valentine’s Day is a day where the ghosts and ghouls of past relationships come to haunt the lonely. Being by yourself on that day… it can break a person. It can cause all their fears to rupture forth, as they think about the future, and how there is no one. And it’s damned scary.

Halloween is a time filled with masks and costumes. Everyone and everything can and will be something else, just because we can be, and no one will care, because… hey! It’s Halloween. That’s what everyone is supposed to do.

Valentine’s Day is a time where everyone puts on masks and costumes, pretending to be people that they aren’t. Everyone becomes extra sensitive and extra thoughtful, and no one seems to think this is out of ordinary because… hey! It’s Valentine’s Day. That’s the way everyone is SUPPOSED to act.

When it’s Halloween, you give all of the people dressed up in their spooky finery buckets of candy as a reward for all of their hard work in deception.

And when it’s Valentine’s Day, you reward those masked with thoughts and sensitivity with chocolates, to reward them for being someone you’d want to stay with forever, just for one day.

So yeah. Those are the broad and general reasons why Halloween reminds me of
Valentine’s Day. Any other reasons I have… well, they are more personal.

But for those, let’s just say I find no pleasure in noting that Halloween occurs in “The Fall”, and Valentine’s Day is nestled quite nicely in that time of year where everything is frozen.

And let’s just say I like it better when things are warm.

Those who need to know what that means will get it.

And with that, I bring this edition of The Crap Box to a close.

Until next time, stay lightly toasted.

Magnanimously yours,

-B. Schatz