So, here's how my day went. You know that "hi, ho" song? From Snow White? How it starts with that slow, celebratory "hiiii hoooooo, hiii hoooooo" chant? Well, I spent the day singing that, but replacing the "hi" with "canned" and the "ho" with "ghost." I'm not sure how it comes across in text form, but it was like, "canned GHOOOOOssst....canned ghhhhOOOOOOST!"

The point is that Canned Ghosts are exciting enough to make such sudden spirals into mutated epilepsy perfectly natural.

It's a safe bet that this is the greatest can I will ever own. From 1985, it's an officially licensed Ghostbusters Canned Ghost, created for some mysterious purpose that, as of yet, eludes me. While obviously a promotional item of some nature, I've read conflicting origin stories. Some of the origin stories mark this as a Canada-only item, and I'm willing to believe it, because the label says it was made in Mississauga, and that's most definitely a glitch Pokemon or a city in Ontario.

Many of the origin stories also claim that Canned Ghosts were given away at movie theaters to push people into seeing Ghostbusters. Since the film debuted in 1984 and the can is dated 1985, that's a little tougher to swallow. Unless...hmmm...perhaps Ghostbusters didn't debut in Canada until 1985? Did I solve this? If Bobby Stack was still alive, I'd totally nyah-face him.

Even if it isn't true, it sure is fun to imagine. Those lucky Canucky theatergoers, accosted by random pay-per-day givey-outty people who had boxes and boxes of Canned Ghosts to empty before they could go home. I would've left with 80 of them. Or at least two, because it's easy to make excuses about why you would need two. Sorry, I'm kind of dreaming aloud here.

Where it came from isn't important. What it is, is. Let me repeat: CANNED GHOST. As the label confirms, this can CONTAINS 1 GHOST. Today, this thrills me, but if I was a six-year-old fishing for movie theater freebies, I would've had a rare adolescent stroke at the idea that I was now personally responsible for a one canned ghost. What kid wouldn't?

A note on the bottom warns us that only professional Ghostbusters should ever open the can, which was just their tricky way of telling you that there wasn't anything in it. Boo.

As if the mere suggestion of ghosts in cans wasn't enough, get a load of the "contents" section on the left. It's so good, I'm going to repeat it below despite the fact that it's plainly visible in the photo.

Oh. My. God. So it's not like I've just inherited some dumbass generic ghost. No, I'm in charge of a Transylvanian spirit who haunted a goblin castle. I don't need to have a clear indication of what a goblin castle is to see that I've been blessed. I keep going back to the kid thing, but it's so true: As a child, could you really not see this becoming your favorite toy? I'm 100% positive that I would have been obsessed with it. This was and remains the can that could.

Okay, then we get to the "warning" section. Again, it's much too amazing not to reprint:

I read that a few times to make sure I had it right, out of pure survivalism. The notion that my Canned Ghost glows in the dark is so enormously oomphfy, I don't know that I could've continued living had I mistook its meaning. That kind of disappointment could split a fucking camel.

Ohhh yessss, it really does glow! This means I'm safe! It also means that my Transylvanian goblin castle spirit, who has now sat trapped in a repurposed orange juice concentrate can for 25 years, must be going absolutely out of his mind.

You're probably expecting me to break this open to make sure that there isn't some kind of cute paper ghost inside, but I know better. There's nothing in there but intangible magic, which will forever escape if I pop the top. As we should forever remind ourselves: Had the fra-jee-lay crate remained closed, the Bumpuses would've been neighbors to a family with their own bowling alley.