An atheist enjoys Halloween

October 31, 5:51 PMLA Atheism ExaminerHugh Kramer

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Like a lot of other atheists, I have a special relationship with Halloween. the primarily secular nature of the holiday means I don't have to worry about things like whether saying "happy holidays" instead of "merry Christmas" will bother any of my non-secular friends. It's also a lot of fun to dress up and go to costume parties. All that free-flowing candy is wonderful too... or at least it was before I was old enough to start thinking about my diet.

These days, if I'm not going to a party, I like to greet the trick-or-treaters at the door with something special. One year, I wore a Ronald Reagan mask while handing out candy. This turned out to be a mistake. The wrinkled rubber visage frightened the younger children and didn't impress the older ones. "You're too fat to be Ronald Reagan," one of them sniffed. "Kid," I replied. "It's 10 years since I left office. Haven't you heard of inflation?"

Another Halloween, I brought my pet guinea pig with me to the door. Now, guinea pigs are about the gentlest, most harmless little animals on the planet... so I set out to change all that. I dressed the little furball up in a black silk cape, painted those two little buck teeth he had with red vegetable dye and voila, I had a vampire guinea pig! I told children they could pet him but they had to be very careful 'cause he could drain all the blood from a carrot in under 10 seconds! When the older ones scoffed at the idea of a vampire guinea pig or the notion that carrots had blood, I popped out a carrot that had two little red bite marks painted on it for proof! Everyone enjoyed the joke; even the guinea pig. He got the carrot at the end of the evening and its lack of blood didn't bother him a bit...

Well, I've got to go. I'm leaving for a party in about an hour. I'm going dressed as... no, I won't tell you. If all goes well I'll have a great anecdote to pass along this time next year. Meanwhile, happy Halloween folks!

Photo Credits:
1) Ronald Reagan mask
2) Vampire guinea pig. Photo from Cuddlycavies.

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