$5 fake eyeballs, that no one would eat - What gives??

Yes, it’s true.  I ventured out into the wild.  I actually told my sons they could invite one kid each over for a Halloween sleepover – that means, 6 wild and wooly boys – plus the two neighbor boys, so that makes eight.  People look at me strangely when I don’t flinch about this.  Ahhh.. adrenalin.  Just takes adrenalin, serotonin and a splash of alcohol.  

To begin the ‘shop of horrors’, I made the kids vacuum (insert blood curdling scream here) and the dreaded: ‘clean your room’ command, which always produces shrieks of terror and an instant disappearing act.  To make it worthwhile, afterward I threw a box of black garbage bags and purple Halloween lights at the boys and told them to go make a man cave.  Not your average man cave.  A “spooky” man cave.  There is a mini tunnel that goes thru our basement – a creepy tunnel; perfect for a spooky man cave!! 

Excited, they dove into the task, furiously rummaging thru the Halloween box, the closets for tape, push pins, string, you name it.  I bolted to Dillons to speedily nab guts and eyeballs.  Ya just GOTTA have some nasty eyeballs if you are going to make a spooky man cave!  I needed something slimy and hideous...and edible.  Boys LOVE to eat gross stuff.  I had some sketti and ketchup, no worries there, but what to do about eyeballs?  As I was almost lured over to the Starbuck's booth by the seductive aroma of wonderful fresh ground instant energy, a light went on - Mozerella balls, in the deli section!  The wheels to my shoppin' cart were smokin'.  I nearly tackled the nearest employee to ravenously find my treasure.  Crap, they were $5.  The lady chuckled and said, "Well, you got the last jar, seems like eyeballs are in demand right now, guess you’ll have to join the herds and pay $5."  I bit my lip and snagged some sliced olives.  Toothpicked them on.  Now, how to make them bloody?  Gads.  Finally settled on using salsa. It looked GREAT!

By the time their buds showed, the cave and lights were done, but no spook stuff.  What was I going to do?  I couldn’t just leave it, sitting there, lame as all get out.  I whisked them outside to go play football.  When a friend of mine dropped off her son, and saw what I was thinking, she got excited and fled to her house to get an array of spook items.  By the time we hung spook lights, skulls, and polished it off with guts and nasty eyeballs, it was looking awesome.  Coulda used more fake cobwebs but I hate those things.  I have enough real ones around the house to have no desire for fake ones.  We finished it off with some spooky blinking eyes that faced them in the distance as they would emerge from the end of the tunnel. 

The boys had no idea we finished ‘haunting’ it, complete with spooky sounds eminating from a blaster hiding behind the black plastic.…they LOVED it!  The neighbors came over in their PJ’s and went thru.  They were so excited I bet their mum had a hard time getting them back to sleep!  As for us, for the life of me, I couldn’t get one taker to dine on those fake salsa eyeballs.

Despite my disappointment in our guest’s revulsion to my choice of cuisine for the night, we enjoyed a scavenger hunt in the back yard after dark where they all got a prize.  All this excitement led to screaming, high blood sugars, and toxic testosterone. I reached to my holster for the earplugs and ripped out emergency impact gear.  It was Nerf War time, with flying children & dog, a darting cat, an eyerolling bunnyrabbit, and me wearing protective goggles dodging the whisling nerf bullets as I zoned out on FB, and drank an extra large glass of wine.  A Freddy-like thing, a skeleton, Cap’n America, Green Lantern, a glowing alien, and an 80s dude wearing a mullet; all turning over coffee tables downstairs using them as shields and battle stations, forts, whatever.  Most people would freak but, ya know?  I have crappy furniture, and know why?  THIS is why.  I refuse to replace and buy nice furniture until it will no longer be used for such purposes, and children will not eat ice cream bars, popcorn and spill flarp or silly putty on it.  I figure, have at it, boys (within reason)!!  You can’t hurt me or destroy my peace by hurting my furniture (smile). 

Well, they all finally wore themselves out.  By 9:30 Cap’n America and Green Lantern were unconscious; one on the floor in front of TV, the other on the couch, complete with his still clenched fingers on Nerf gun.  The other 3 were feverishly playing Monopoly.  I actually got them all to sleep for about 7 hrs and my house was still standing, and not once was 911 called.  I considered this a major accomplishment.  All the cleaning and preparation was demolished within an hour, but each child needed plastic surgery to get the smiles off their faces as they drifted off to la-la-land.  Me?  Chuckling, satisfied that I gave them a good time.  I am able to chuckle because I have low standards for cleaning so I am not going to stay up all night worrying about it.  My mother always had a housekeeper.  I guess I could wish for that, but honestly I just don’t care.  I know I’d never place at a June Cleaver competition.  And…I am okay with that.  Really.  Heh.