Halloween

My complaining started the minute we received the invitation in the mail. Halloween Party: Come dressed as the thing that scares you most!

“But I’m not scared of the usual stuff like spiders, snakes, vampires and ghosts” I complained, “and the costume shop never has something for existential angst!”

“Stop being a wanker,” my wiser half replied, “just make a list of things you are scared of and then choose one of those.”

So I did, and you know what, it turns out I am scared of heaps of stuff.

For example I’m scared that when people around me are speaking in a foreign language that they are talking about me being fat (this still applies when I am in a country where everyone speaks another language);

I am scared that the make-up lady at work is right and this weird rash I have around my eye is caused by drinking beer, which means I will either have to stop drinking beer, or spend my life with red itchy beer goggles;

I’m worried I’ll lose my hair because I once shaved my head and my noggin looked like the last misshapen bruised avocado at the supermarket that everyone has squeezed then rejected;

I’m terrified that I will die before the final episode of Lost and I will never understand what was going on with that bloody island;

I’m even more terrified I will see the final episode of Lost and I will still not understand what was going on with that bloody island;

Babies… you know, just in general;

I’m anxious that the fun I had in my twenties will destroy my brain and I will become one of those old guys who just repeats his same stupid jokes all the time;

I’m scared that I am too happy most of the time to think of anything genuinely deep to say;

I’m virtually terror-stricken that one day soon a comedian will make a joke and the Australian Family Association complain they really shouldn’t be joking about things crossing roads, I mean won’t somebody please think of the chickens?

I’m scared of having an ugly baby, but I don’t know it’s ugly and all my friends pretend but then one day I am walking down the street and someone says: “Why do you have that monkey in a pram?”;

I’m fearful that I will be shunned at dinner parties in Fitzroy and Newtown if I tell my friends that I even though I loved The Wire, I think The Shield is a far-superior crime series;

(Oh and while we are on a roll I didn’t get the end of Donnie Darko either);

I’m scared that one day I will push a cotton bud too far into my ear and end up saying things like: “Wow, what a completely unbiased article by Glenn Milne, he truly is an objective journalist!” or “No I think The Spearman Experiment and 20-1 are completely different shows!”;

I’m worried I should have kept more receipts;

I’m scared that I’ll never be mature enough not to giggle when they mention former IOC President Dick Pound’s name on the news;

I’m scared our government will never have the balls to let gay people marry and I will have to ashamed of that all my life;

I’m scared that someone will be staying at my house and open a cupboard in my house and find something embarrassing like a bong or a DVD box-set of Grey’s Anatomy;

I’m terrified I will become one of those boring middle-aged people who gets angry at young people for doing the exact same things they did when they were young;

I’m scared that I’m right and there is no God, and existence is meaningless, and I really should have just gone to the beach;

I even more scared the crazy guy in the mall with the cardboard sign is right and there is a God and he is going to be really mad at what I did alone in my room as a teenager;

I’m afraid that I should have done something productive in my life like settle down and have a baby;

I’m scared shirtless that if I did settle down and have a baby I would immediately regret it and wish I had spent the money on buying DVD box-sets which I would enjoy a lot more and would never tell me they hated me and that I had ruined their life;

I’m terrified of falling over and knocking out some of my front teeth, I’m even more terrified this will result in people thinking I am British;

I’m scared that pain in my hip that I have now had for a couple of years, and assumed would go away at some stage, is now just how my hip feels;

I am scared the person I am in my head isn’t the way that other people see me;

I’m afraid I don’t tell the people I love that I love them enough, and I am terrified I tell strangers in the mosh-pit at the Big Day Out that I love them way too much;

I’m scared that I will die young and never get to see the Western Bulldogs win a premiership;

I’m scared that I will live to 100 and get a telegram from King William that says: “I’m sorry you have never seen the Western Bulldogs win the premiership”;

I’m afraid the one thing I will regret just before I die is that I didn’t eat enough cake;

I’m scared that I should have spent more time in my life worrying about things like world poverty and less worrying about whether I taped America’s Next Top Model;

I’m worried that the fun I had in my twenties will destroy my brain and I will become one of those old guys who just repeats his same stupid jokes all the time;

And finally, I have to admit the thing I am scared of the most is my editors will realize that this column is actually a list of things I’m scared of rather than the column about Halloween they requested.

But, you know, where do you get a costume that says that?

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