Daily Evil - Tuesday, October 31st

Daily Evil report. This one actually happened on my last airliner flight, but I didn't get around to noding it until now. Forgive my trespass.

I recently had the unhappy luck to be flying eastbound out of Orange County airport(SNA/John Wayne) whilst returning to Boston. I made the further mistake of flying United. Upon reaching the airport, I was told that the plane was 1.5 hours late. I asked what that would do to my connection at Chicago O'Hare (ORD), knowing full well what the answer was.

After fiddling with his computer, the United counter guy (Larry, according to his tag) acknowledged that I was screwed since I'd miss the last connection to Boston by thirty minutes. However (kudos to Larry and United here) he did the right thing and found an American flight leaving in twenty minutes that connected through Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW). He promptly issued me a ticket, and told me that the flight was less than half full, which was better than the packed United flights. Thanks Larry!

Where's the Evil? I'm getting there. So I get on the plane and fly to DFW; the flight is, in fact fairly empty. In DFW, I am informed by American that they in fact have to connect me through DC/Reagan. What the fuck!?? Had I known this, I would've just gone up to LAX and gotten on the redeye. But I digress.

So I finally get on the plane, and there's maybe 40 people on a Boeing 757, so we got lotsa room. We all settle in to sleep. Then this poor woman ahead of me with two kids (an infant and a four-year-old) begins to lose control of the infant. Not her fault. The kids had obviously been travelling all day just like me, and while the four-year-old was dealing by becoming sulky, the infant was lustily squalling. She was frantically trying to get the kid quiet, because the noise was just...piercing.

Here's the evil. (Finally). So she and the four-year-old have to go to the bathroom, and she can't leave the baby, but the three of them just can't fit in a bathroom on a 757. She's looking around frantically. I wave to her and offer to hold the child. This, of course, gets me a suspicious look, so I reassure her by giving her all my ID, plus one of the stewardesses says she'll watch me, and I take the kid and hold him in the approved position and begin rocking him. He quiets some, but keeps bawling. She looks grateful, and runs off to the loo.

As soon as she was inside, I just waved at the stewardess. I didn't even have to speak. She brought me a Bacardi miniature, and I doused my finger in it with some juice and offered it to the infant. He nabbed my finger so fast I thought I was gonna lose it. Sucked all that right off, and I managed to get about six fingerloads of Bacardi rubbed onto his gums by the time she came back out. When she did, the evidence was all gone, everyone around me was looking studiously away whistling innocently, and the kid was sound asleep in my arms.

The look of sheer relief on her face was enough to make me alternately curse and bless myself for my effrontery with her child's health.

The kid snoozed soundly through DC and woke up on final approach to Logan, cooing softly and waving his hands.

EVIL RATING: 7.5. Contributing to the chemical dependency of an infant. Deceiving a mother in distress. Gawd, I hope that kid doesn't end up an alcoholic or I'd probably kill myself. Luckily I'll never know. Extra points for collusion with the whole airplane. 2.5 points subtracted because the kid seemed to come out of the whole thing better off.

I don't do Halloween, or more specifically, trick or treat. In recent years, kids have become more demanding, more rude, the costumes less creative, and the parents more insistent that I provide their "cute" children with sugar, despite every polite indicator I could think of to give that the house is not contributing to this dubious annual event.

The first year I decided not to honor this tradition, I simply didn't put a jack-o'-lantern out front, turned off all the lights in the front of the house, and placed a large sign on the door that stated, simply "Sorry, no candy". This merely led to parents pounding on the door screaming, "We know you're in there! Open up!".

The second year, I carved a huge erect penis into a pumpkin along with the words TRICKS ONLY, and placed it on my front porch. This subtlety flew over the heads of nearly all the adults, though some children wondered why there was a "peepee on a pumpkin" at this house. Still, this didn't stop rude people from invading my privacy, and that year, my house got egged. Got some interesting looks from some cute teenaged boys, though. See you when you're 18, kiddios.

Last year, I left a bowl of vodka filled chocolates on the doorstep. Since I didn't get arrested, I figure I either turned the neighborhood children into alcoholics, or furthered their parents disease. However, the pounding continued, and the parents were even more belligerent, calling me a "motherfucker" under their breath when I didn't answer the door.

And still, even though I've lived in this neighborhood for nearly seven years, parents don't think to avoid this house.

So, this year, I decided to be truly evil. Every light in the house is blazing. The front door stands wide open. A cute little pumpkin sits at the end of my driveway.

And I've rolled my television into the entryway hall, pointing it right at the entrance to my house. Just a screen door stands between it ... and the corruption and death of innocence for all neighborhood children whose parents just don't get the message after all these years.

It's playing, at full volume, the raunchiest gay pornography I could find in my collection. The sounds of shocked and horrified parents are truly ... delicious.

(post-event) Evil Rating: 9.5 out of 10 -- corrupting the morals of minors, shocking the delicate sensitivites of demanding parents of said minors, and wreaking chaos throughout the neighborhood, with nary a reprisal in sight. Hah! 1/2 a point off, since I may actually have done some good by giving fantasy fodder to someone in the closet.

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UPDATE 10-31-2001 -- not a soul came knocking on our door this year. Unfortunately, I believe this lack of visitors is due not to my own evil, but the far greater evil of others.

Next year, I think I'll welcome the little rugrats to my home.

UPDATE 10-31-2002 -- I don't know if anyone came by the house. I had to work late. Sigh.

UPDATE 10-31-2003 -- I was in no fit mood to even recognize it was Halloween. So fuck 'em.

UPDATE 10-31-2004 -- I live in Texas now, where it's much more likely someone would either shoot me or convert me to worship Jesus for the kind of shenanigans I was up to in California, so I spent a sedate evening drinking port and grilling portobello mushrooms with my cousin at her house while they passed out candy.

UPDATE 10-31-2005 -- I got into a fight with my mom over how the business is being run. Kids smashed the pumpkins she'd set out in her yard all over the driveway. I win!