Funny story for you- My brother wore a wrist-to-ankle jumpsuit, gloves, boots, and a big rubber mask around Halloween (Now called “Cosplay for Candy.” You heard it here first). He did a funny thing at a local park’s party where they had piles of hay bales, scarecrows, and pumpkins as decorations. He flopped face down in a pile of hay that some kids had left strewn around in their ongoing straw fight through the park. When the kids ran back around to his pile of hay, one of them grabbed him by the foot, thinking he was one of the scarecrows that they were swinging around at one another. As the kid reached for his foot, my brother jumped up and yelled, “Aaargh!”
The kid fell straight backward from his heels as his scarecrow bludgeon came to life and shrieked. I have personally never seen anyone so stunned as that before or since, and that includes people who were unconscious before they hit the floor.
I used to decorate my yard to the nines for Halloween, putting up a really junky garden fence I left flopped to let bindweed grow on (spouse said it lowered the property value-perfect) and put lights on it and filled the yard with dioramas lit up, something erupting out of a grave (layer of bricks and headstone), a big inflatable tarantula, and the big pumpkins I would grow (pallet sized, they needed a forklift to move, I kid not). I sat near the front door in scarecrow clothes with a shawl and the candy bowl in my lap. Hat down, and would wait for kids to show. Some parents caught on, some didn’t and I would animate when they got close enough. I made some pee themselves (8-10 they deserved it) and would just go ‘boo’ to the really little ones. Neighbor some years before made a coffin for the front porch and sat up a few times and scared the yellow out of kids too. They would always come back though!
Fun with Lowell and yesterday’s makes more sense in the tone. Hubris had already seen the scarecrow….
Definitely puts previous strip’s sibling revelry in context!
Sweet bonding moment for these two.
Brings back Halloween memories. I would not let my kids trick or treat, but I would let them put on costumes and hand out the treats to the neighborhood children who came by. One night, after hearing loud adult sounding screams, I peeked outside to see my little princess serenely handing out treats to the children and my little ninja jumping out of the tree and startling the parents.
Mid 70’s before pumpkin carving became a mainstream artform, my mom mandated the pumpkin not be carved so she could make pie from it. So I took a black marker, spent real time and got the eyes to focus at a certain point. This was about the height of an 8-10 year old when sitting on our step at a certain distance. Then it had a grin with one fang hanging down like it was eyeing you up for ‘lunch’. I had it sitting there, and open door, and the pumpkin stared at you. Startled many a kid. Some of the littler ones didn’t get it so I’d hold and rotate the pumpkin (tell them to close their eyes, now open them) and scare them too. It was totally righteous. Mom didn’t make the pie she promised either….
Guy we used to know in Colorado, would decorate his lawn with several dummies, in the weeks before Hallowe’en. Then on the night, he and his buddies would all occupy the dummies’ clothes. Worked a treat!
hehe of course the little troll had an EXTRA PLAN passed the “giving the clothes back”
Kara, revenger of the trees.
Let that be a warning to you. Never be a tree.
Ninja warrior Kara 🙂
Seems to me that Lowell had already become “comfortable not wearing anything” shortly before his sojourn into the woods. Then again, given that he was tanking emotionally after being sacked by SportSmart, maybe it wasn’t so much about comfort as simply not caring. Or, possibly, not even being wholly aware of it.
don’t know what would be scarier lowel running around naked or kara going postal on a scarecrow besides paste running around naked with lowel