a disclaimer: this blog is not about halloween... but this post does mention the dreaded holiday

just putting this out here. yes "zombies" are featured in the title, but i have to say that i'm not all that big on halloween. its funny as a person with a background in elementary and early childhood education, halloween and valentine's day are my least favorite holidays.

if i had to rank the major holidays as they pertain to a teacher from favorite to hated (yes hated) they would go:

1.christmas/hannukah/kwanzaa - no matter what you celebrate you will receive gifts/candy/alcohol/movie certificates/etc. teachers often refer to this as "the score"
2.new year's day - essentially this recognizes that all staff and parents are human and take advantage of a day of nursing hangovers. i think the hangover part of this holiday should be a bigger part of the celebration. like maybe say a parade full of napping and passed out people on floats made by those same sleeping people the night before when they were drunk. i imagine floats with deflated tires, flowers and paper mache pasted to the side of hungover faces, and small fires in random spots on the displays as they crawl through intersections and over street corners knocking down fire hydrants, road signs,etc...
3. president's day - the day off, thanks to our founding fathers.
4. halloween - the candy and such is a plus, but as a teacher you have to manage a classroom that is essentially in crazy mode all day long (sometimes that is not too far from a normal day). unfortunately parents' attempt to get their kids into a cute costume that will eventually hang on their wall in picture form (which will eventually embarrass them when they bring home their first significant other) and they forget about feasibility. parts of the costume have to be retied, repinned, readjusted, and of course these are little guys so they have to go to the bathroom every 20 minutes, so the costume better have a quick escape hatch. if not, well let's just say it will be an unhappy day for that trick-or-treater.
5. valentine's day - okay here is my "bah, hum bug" moment. i really hate this holiday. not because i am single, i hate this holiday when i'm in LOVE with someone. i could site the whole "it's a corporate holiday" thing, but let me tell you, it is the least creative of the holidays. every thing is packaged perfectly (i use that term loosely) in pink, red, lace, shiny, silk, balloon, teddy bear, and heart forms. and what happens with all of that shit? you throw it out. okay you throw everything out after all holidays, but this is the one where you get rid of everything. how many people actually say, "oh and this is my teddy bear with the 'i wuv you' balloon that josh got me fifteen years ago. isn't it sweet? oh and this is the heart pillow that plays bryan adams' 'everything i do, i do for you', that josh gave me in 2000." by the way if you are dating someone like that, break up with them now, unless you enjoy the unattached mind. now as a teacher, there is something cute about 20 handcrafted cards that say happy valentine's day spelled in scarwling crayon reading "hSVda5*/g". but i guess its how adults interact with each other on this particular day. "honey i love you so much, and thank god there is a holiday that reminds me to tell you this. so here is a precious moments statuette that says exactly what i am supposed to tell you." wow i'm a cynical asshole. but why is feb. 14 more meaningful than feb. 15? oh because the card i just gave you says so...

for a couple of months i have been wanting to shave my beard, but i wanted to use the remaining moustache as a costume prop for halloween. but being an early childhood instructor and having a moustache raises the creep flag. so the costumes that have been pondered are:

- police man - too village people-ish
- fire man - see police man
- news anchor - students would get this
- freddie mercury - see police man, fire man, and news anchor

so as it turns out the one that makes the most sense with enough kitsch value is being...

a nascar driver. the problems with this are one) due to the suprising rise of popularity, nascar gear is expensive. two) this outfit will work with school, but what about my time between school and an eventual appearance at a party? i look ridiculous in just a moustache. i mean i look like a bad ass, but seriously this is something i can keep for less than five minutes without a costume.

the other issue is that the beard makes me look closer to my age of 30. if i shave it off i lose at least ten years, maybe more and i will have to go through showing six forms of i.d. to see a rated r movie.