As you’ve grown tired of reading about by now, I haven’t felt much Halloween spirit this season. Tried to beat the pissy out of my hizzy Sunday afternoon by going to a bunch of stores that I haven’t already scoured forty times since late August.

Aside from the usual run of department stores and pharmacies was Spirit, a Halloween store that I’ve only normally witnessed as a temporary resident in local malls. This year, they upgraded by taking over a long closed Toys ‘R’ Us on the other side of town. In the photo above, look close and you’ll notice the familiar TRU rainbow pattern. Well, I guess that’s not too familiar. This particular TRU was not fond of remodeling to franchise specifications. TRU stores haven’t had the bricky rainbows since the 1930s.

Spirit only utilized around an eighth of the store’s available space, using crude curtains to block off the rest. This sucked the punch out of my original notion: “A Halloween store the size of a Toys ‘R’ Us! Wow!” Still, it was ten times bigger than any of the mall stores, and they put the extra real estate to good use with at least 45 aisles worth of Shrek costumes in different sizes.

Halloween stores are generally very expensive considering the quality of the goods sold, and this was no different. Skull-themed squeeze balls that reveal fake blood and rubber maggots inside the eye sockets are a perennial favorite, but we shouldn’t be paying six bucks for them. We shouldn’t, but we do, because tis the season for being frighteningly frivolous. I didn’t come home empty handed, but at press time, I’m only willing to share a few of the purchased items with the general public…

A few of Spirit’s displays were dedicated to clearance items, where the thrifty have a chance to buy all of the Halloween stuff nobody else loves at discount prices. I was thrilled to find the neon pumpkin light above, which despite looking like something from a 1986 Spencer’s store, was actually only produced a few years ago. Originally retailing for 19.99, the clearance price was 6.97. I’m not sure if I would’ve bought it if it was 6.99. There’s something about that “97″ that always gets me.

There were other, cooler Halloween styles available, but I picked the pumpkin because it was the only one with a working “Try Me” demo button. I’ve been burned too many times on non- or mal- or some other three-letter-prefix-with-a-hyphen functioning clearance electronics, and really, there’s no point in owning a neon light if it doesn’t help your living room look at least a little bit like that shitty store Tootie built after Mrs. Garrett’s bakery burned down.

The batteries were included, and the end result is quite nice. I have the option of leaving the pumpkin on with a consistent glow, or if I’m feeling saucy, I can have him flash on and off until he drives everyone within sight distance into epileptic fits. My neon pumpkin also makes a perfect centerpiece for my Halloween Mood Tableâ„¢, as it’s capable of giving off light without running any special risk of burning the apartment down. My hand-shaped five-wicked candle cannot say the same. On the flip side, the neon pumpkin light is totally at a loss when it comes to dripping wax that looks like human blood. Perhaps, if they work in tandem, the world will be theirs.

I think this is the first piece of real neon lighting that I’ve ever owned, which is somewhat cathartic considering the amount of time I spent pining for such lighting as a child. Back then, even small lights like this were preclusively expensive, and the only way I could grab one was by blowing one of my “big” birthday or Christmas gift wishes. I wanted a neon light, but not that much. Now that I have this, I can move forward with completing the second biggest treasure hunt of my childhood: That choking hazard poster with the mitt-handed blue guy.

And then, somehow, I let myself buy the two cheap slime toys seen above, which were ludicrously priced at 2.99 each. All told, they cost me almost as much as the pumpkin light! Each toy consists of a plastic coffin, filled with a stretchy, rubbery monster figure who lives in a soup of cold, brightly colored toy slime. It’s the weirdest toy slime ever, too. Consistency-wise, it’s sort of like that smelly shit we used to squeeze out of those little tin tubes to blow noxious bubbles with using a tiny straw. I worded that last sentence poorly, but hopefully someone knows what I’m referring to. The toy slime feels just like that stuff, and it’s nowhere near liquidy enough to drip on any unsuspecting action figures who’ve gotten on my bad side. On the other hand, I was always warned not to touch dry ice, so I didn’t, but I’m pretty sure that this is what it would feel like, and it’s good to finally know! MOVING ON.

“Hot Spiced Cider” might sound a little Christmassy, but there are recipes for it in virtually every last one of my 5,000 Halloween craft/recipe magazines. I’m not really a fan of drinking alcohol for the flavor of it all, but rum seemed like it’d get completely lost in a sea of hot cider, and that’s right up my alley. Problem is, it’s been like 200 degrees out all month long. You can’t really drink hot cider when you’re already hot. Then you’re dealing with “double hot,” a term that could only be construed as positive if it was mouthed by some jackoff character in a Kevin Smith movie in relation to the ass of a nearby woman. So, I hungs a left on 2-1 and Lewis, and ended up with the next best thing: Cold Spiced Cider.

All you need is some store-bought apple cider and a nice bottle of Captain Morgan’s spiced rum. Technically, what I bought from the store isn’t true apple cider, but rather just the usual pasteurized apple juice under a more seasonal label. I don’t care; it says “cider” and that’s good enough for me. The official recipe calls for ten ounces of cider and two ounces of rum, but that’s a bit of a hard sell. You’d have to drink a gallon of cider before you felt anything approaching tingly. I went a little closer to 3.5 ounces of rum for every 10 ounces of cider, and by my third glass, most of what was on TV seemed a lot funnier. So did my sneakers.

I added a dash of cinnamon, along with a cinnamon stick from a jar that was very likely older than I am. I choose to believe that cinnamon sticks are incapable of going bad, and that there’s nothing wrong with stirring my drinks with a foodstuff that saw Carter in office. Despite my bravado, I abhor the taste of liquor, and the added cinnamon masks it well enough. I’d look up cinnamon on Wikipedia to try to come up with some metaphysical plusses in adding it, but the truth is, it’s just fun to dash cinnamon on stuff and pretend you’re some expert gourmand.

And speaking of haute cuisine, Ring Pop has unveiled their new Halloween flavor: Screaming Berry! It sort of tastes like blueberries, but the most amazing thing is that the black portions of the black & orange striped candies are actually black, and not that deep purple that so many candy companies try to pass off as black. I can’t believe that this hasn’t been heralded as a bigger breakthrough, but I suppose the people who give a shit about candy being black are a fairly silent minority.

The only downside is that truly black candy isn’t translucent, thereby robbing us of the usual joy of watching that little plastic “knob” attached to the plastic ring become ever more visible as we suck and suck and suck. But, since I only came up with that gripe so my Ring Pop review could be more than a single paragraph, I’m not sure if it should really count.

I feel like it’s been a year since I wrote words and shared them with people, so I apologize if there were any typos or other weirdnesses in the above. It’s all about baby steps. Tonight, writing. Tomorrow, proofreading. And the next day, a good excuse for why I won’t do either again for another two weeks.

Posted by Matt. E-mail me!