MattMaroon.com

So this year I had some Halloween parties to go to and I figured what the hell, I might as well make a costume. I haven’t done that in at least ten years, probably more, unless you count my senior year of high school when I wore a hood and cheap sunglasses and carried a FedEx package around in imitation of the Unabomber.

I wanted something funny but wasn’t sure what. My first thought was to wear all black, paint my face black, get black shoes, and wear big white earbuds in order to be a dancing silhouette from an iPod commercial. But I hate makeup, I hate dancing, and I hate iPods. And I was skeptical of my ability to find a bright orange wall to hang out in front of.

My next thought was an idea from a friend, an Islamic hijacker. I thought great, it’s easy, it’s funny, and I’m Lebanese so I’m sort of allowed. All I need is a towel and a box cutter. But when I ran it by one friend, who was throwing one party in New York City, she reminded me that that is the sort of thing that is much funnier here in Ohio than it would be at a party in a condo from which you would have been able to see the World Trade Center if it were still standing. Good point.

After that I was running low on ideas. And then the best one of all came to me. I Googled for Dick Cheney mask and found a perfect one. Cheney on his own is enough to give many people nightmares, but I wasn’t finished. I bought a toy shotgun on Amazon and went to Wal-Mart for hunting gear.

The costume was hilarious, but would have been much more so if I were able to actually wear the mask for any significant amount of time. Unfortunately the heat was unbearable and it was impossible to see out of. And there was no mouth hole to drink beer through. The toy gun was pretty fun (it made a loud noise when you pulled the trigger) though. I’m thinking about carrying it around with me all of the time just because it’s so cool. I just have to remember to leave it in the car before entering banks or liquor stores.

I was at a friend’s Halloween party last night and talking to a lot of people I’d never met before. Most of them were what you would consider extremely liberal. It was an unusual situation for me to be in. I’m from Ohio, where libertarians like me are pretty much as far left as it gets and most of my friends are similarly minded. I’m sure there are some insanely liberal people here, but there aren’t many and I’m pretty well insulated from them.

I have always thought that the difference between a liberal extremist and a conservative extremist is that the liberal extremists at least have their hearts in the right place. Conservatives want to rob the poor and enforce their outdated morality on everyone, liberals want to live in some utopian dream where everyone really is equal, earns a “living wage” even if they contribute nothing of worth to society, and is free to do as they please. The former will, as history has shown, always lead to widespread violence and revolution, and the latter is so far from reality and contrary to human nature as to be entirely unattainable and lead to economic collapse if even attempted. But at least the liberals having something noble in mind.

What scares me most about the conservatives is the way they’re so willing to ignore the parts of the constitution they don’t like. In their quest to fulfill their goals they are willing to disenfranchise voters in areas most likely to vote Democratic, throw separation of church and state completely out the window, and torture whoever they deem an enemy combatant. And when the New York Times reports on all of these misdeeds, they call them terrorists.¬ Liberals at least actually believe in the document they so revere. The modern republicans just use it as another buzzword in their propaganda while traipsing all over it and everything it stands for.

I’ve thought, for the last six years, that at least liberals wouldn’t do that. Now I’m not so sure. At the party someone who had heard I was from Ohio but assumed I lived in New York (not an unreasonable assumption given that I was at a Halloween party in Brooklyn) asked me if I was going to use my parents residence and fill out an absentee vote for Ohio. His reasoning was that New York was already pretty well decided but that states like Ohio, where elections are still in play, need support. So he thought it perfectly reasonable that I would illegally cast my vote where it didn’t belong to help put Democrats in office.

And later I asked myself “is that really any better than what the Republicans have been doing? Is voting in a state you don’t live in any less immoral than rigging a Diebold machine or indiscriminately striking names from the rolls in counties that typically vote for the other party?” It’s certainly less effective, but in reality it’s the same thing, doing what it takes to win no matter the cost.

And honestly if election fraud is what it takes to win then I don’t want to win. True, the modern Republican Party scares me, and I’d love nothing better than to see control of the GOP taken back by its more sane members. They’re running our country into the ground, one torture bill at a time. No doubt about it. But I’d sooner just move to another continent than violate the few ideals that make America special.

I’m not a big fan of the Democrats right now, to tell the truth, but anyone with a brain can see that they are by far the lesser of the two evils. Even so I’m not willing to stoop to the same level as the Republicans to see them replaced. If it can’t be done without violating our national ethics (and I still believe that, with just a little election reform, it can) I’d rather just watch this country crash and burn from a safe distance.

So I’ll cast my vote, and this year it will probably be straight-ticket Democrat, and I’ll sigh while I do it and think about how sad it is that I can’t in good faith vote for a Republican, even if I think they’re the best candidate, just because I know that through the magic of herd mentality they’ll be siding with their torture endorsing brethren far too often. But I won’t ever resort to election fraud. I’ll sooner just go live across the pond.

One thing I learned this year that really surprised me is that you’re supposed to brush a dog’s teeth. That one boggles me. This is an animal that licks its own anus, among other things, and I’m supposed to worry about its dental hygiene.

Still, I wanted to be a good owner so I gave it a shot and quickly discovered that it’s one of those things that sounds a hell of a lot easier than it really is. Try as I might I couldn’t really manage it because Link kept licking the toothbrush and biting on it. I begged, pleaded, and yelled at him to get him to stop, all to no avail. It’s pretty hard to stop a dog from eating something that tastes like chicken.

But the whole experience got me thinking, why does human toothpaste taste like mint? There are a couple other flavors, but nothing really special. I can’t think of any toothpaste that tastes like something I’d normally eat. Why?

Dog toothpaste comes in flavors like chicken, beef, and salmon. I’d like all of those. What about chocolate, peanut butter, or prime rib? Or maybe one that tastes like apple pie a la mode. If someone made toothpaste that tasted like my Aunt Jackie’s sweet potatoes I’d buy it by the truckload.

We have some pretty advanced artificial flavoring technology these days, we could pull it off. Scientists can make a clear substance taste like cola, I’m pretty sure they can make a blue gel taste like lobster thermidor. Unlike a lot of artificially flavored stuff I’m not eating toothpaste so I don’t even care what’s in it. They could put lead in the stuff if it made it taste like clam chowder. If it isn’t caustic and it tastes good, throw it in there.

Any one want to invest in my toothpaste company?

Sexy Nurse Having Trouble Finding Halloween Costume