The only thing that interests me at all about Halloween is the opportunity to commune with the dead, and that has been erased from the Americanized public relations contortion of Halloween that we celebrate with billions of tons of landfill bound plastic skeletons, and plastic pumpkins, many with motors, batteries, bulbs- much or most of it imported from somewhere along with costumes churned out by child laborers, working in unsafe conditions, using toxic chemicals and dyes, and then smartly packaged in more plastic and paper and twist ties, packed in larger cardboard cartons, sealed with plastic tape, to be stacked onto wooden pallets and loaded onto diesel spewing trucks and delivered to ports and airports, then loaded into containers by laborers working for starvation wages, and shipped in boats and planes spitting out more toxic fumes, further warming the planet and diminishing any chance of a livable future for the children whom this holiday seems to be most about pleasing, to arrive for workers to unload and distribute, again by truck to warehouses,  along with tons of small individually wrapped candies, made from genetically altered foods that cause great health consequences, and delivered to retailers to displayed in a special cardboard shelf at the  blowout price of $10.99 for 50 individually plastic wrapped candies, packaged in more plastic, for you to grab and throw into your shopping cart with the rest of your crap. Whenever you’re done shopping you can use the self-checkout line to charge it on your plastic Wall Street bank credit card so you can pay interest to support executive compensation and stock option programs along with their financial contributions to our election process and investment in American “clean” energy independence, throw it into another plastic bag and rush home to hand it out to confused and anxious children with nervous parents watching from afar.  

Trick or Treat.  

© r.s.greene
October 2021