OH OH...IT'S OCTOBER!

Or, it’s Merry Monster-Mashing Month of course!

Compiled by Lady Beatrice Blitterlees and edited by Lord Earl Craboon

This is the 10th month of the year, which should mean a measure of good luck …that is if you like things beginning with one and ending with infinity!

There are however more than a few munchkins out there who are not at all happy with the month of October. This 31-day period of perturbations probably has a great deal more to do with things that go bump in the night than many care to admit in front of their friends and family.

So if you’re really into positive stuff like a belief in the Great Pumpkin, Casper the Friendly Ghost, or the Jolly Green Giant…life should be hunky dory for you this month. But, if you’ve had your fill of Wailing Werewolves, Monster Mashers, and Testy Trolls…then you probably could do with a few feisty things to do to keep your mind off the origins of a blood-curdling scream in the night, the sound of thumping, whacking and whomping designed to give you gargantuan goosebumps not to mention remind you that some horrid hoofed creatures leave horrible hickeys behind on your tender tush whilst you're grabbing a bit of blessed shut-eye.

So, without further adieu…here are a few things to celebrate this month:

October 1: Ask Someone Who Cares Day! (The trick here is to come up with an easy answer for a question you never asked from a person who’s not on your radar screen!)

October 2: Paper Airplane Tournament Day! (For talented armchair pilots with a penchant for paper, a strong sense of competition, and lots of time on their hands!)

October 3: White Elephant Appreciation Day! (Time to name your favorite government boondoggle, the biggest waste of time and money, which gets your goat!)

October 4: Chia-Pet Remembrance Day! (In honor of all imported plants in clay pots that sprout weird hairdos overnight and scare the living daylights out of you!)

October 4: Save the Shush Day! (Actually the “Shush” sound is the international symbol for keep your mouth shut in the library, in school, and in the workplace so people can hear themselves think or at least look very busy so no one will bug them!)

October 5: International Pssst! Day (This positive action day to celebrate the wonderful world of juicy gossip not to mention the goodness gracious grapevine.)

October 6: Toothless Appreciation Day (Discover the joy of verbal communication with a dental dam or better yet... without a terrific set of tantalizing teeth or dazzling dentures).

October 7: One-Horse Recognition Day (This is a day to celebrate everything small, limited, little, or single floating about in the universe looking for a place to fit in naturally!)

October 8: Casper the Friendly Ghost Day (Time to reminisce about out the old Saturday morning cartoons about a smiley-faced vapor state who adores people…not like your average scary ghost that frequent places you wouldn’t be caught dead in naturally!)

October 9: Pumpkin Patch Appreciation Day (A great day for visiting a nearby farm to spot "The Great Pumpkin" to keep the witches & weirdoes happy on Halloween!)

October 10: Turkey Recognition Day (They say there’s a turkey in every crowd …so who would you like to baste or roast tonight…just for fun of course!)

October 11: Grimm’s Fairytale Appreciation Day (Turn off the TV and get out all those scary, gory tales about kings, magic and talking animals…no not your fiendish relatives!)

October 12: Bedroom Slipper Recognition Day (Finally you can don your slippers and wear them to school, to work, or to a posh party tonight …are you happy yet?)

October 13: Kissing Cousin Appreciation Day (This is a day when you get to send a greeting to some long-lost relative or a friend you’ve overlooked, just to let them know you haven’t forgotten their whereabouts, or why you’re not on the same wavelength).

October 14: Libra Appreciation Day (Keep your eyes peeled for indecisive, irritable, overbearing sulky folks who hate loud arguments, confused situations, ugly places, and sloppiness but adore green, purple and pink not to mention emeralds and elephants).

October 15: Slipslops Awareness Day (Oh what ho, time to recall all those tasteless, watery foods that you’d just as soon not see on a menu or your plate anytime soon!)

October 16: Nixing & Hexing Awareness Day (Now you can try out your hocus-pocus mind-control techniques to see if you can put your pesky plants or pets in their place.)

October 17: Snool Recognition Day (Time to pay homage to “funny” fools…those who flaunt their foolishness or flatulence before the public in all manner of outrageous ways).

October 18: Giggleotamus Awareness Day (Celebrate those in your life who giggle when young, snort when old, joyfully reject questions, and laugh at topics like: “The Bicycle as a Factor in Genito-Urinary Diseases, Prostatitis, Prostatorrhea or Prostatic Catarrh” or “Voyage Up the Amazon and the Lion Smacked His Head Off”.)

October 19: Ode to Purple Day (If you’ve always avoided the color purple, you might want to use today to ponder the question why, or if you love it…why on earth would you pick it?)

October 20: Stopwatch Appreciation Day (This is a fine day to put “clockocrats” to shame by proclaiming a time-out to appreciate what happens when all the clocks stop ticking).

October 21: Barriers Built By Bores Day (A day to recognize all the barriers built by bores, clones or drones who wish to keep the ho-hum status quo firmly in place at all costs).

October 22: Vampire & Werewolf Recognition Day (A day of celebration for monster-mashers who need these naughty nemeses to justify their merry-making existence!)

October 23: Snooker Awareness Day (Forget about those blessed balls…and recall the times you’ve used your sniffing and smelling abilities to ferret out important information).

October 24: Plastic or Elastic Virtue Appreciation Day (Time to honor those thinly disguised compliments or magnificent mission statements that amount to diddly squat!)

October 25: A-Musement Park Day (Imagine what it might be like to be locked up for life in a cage with the Jolly Green Giant, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Pied Piper, the Abominable Snowman, or the One-Eyed-One-Horned Flying Purple People Eater!)

October 26: Maze & Labyrinth Awareness Day (Time to identify the most confusing, convoluted, or quaint public service devised to help people if they only knew which door to enter first, where to go and who to speak to who knows what’s really going on.)

October 27: Man-Made Toxic-Waste Awareness Day (What wasteful things do you think you can live without? Junk food, junk mail, junk products, junk entertainment etc.)

October 28: Dry As Dust Day (A timely day to recall all the subjects of conversation that you find dull as dishwater, stale as burnt toast, or simply dry as dust for Pete’s sake!)

October 29: DELIGHT Day At Last! (A celebration of everything in your life that simply delights you, inspires you, and makes your brief stay on planet earth very worthwhile)!

October 30: Wild Goose Chase Day (A fun-filled day when you get to plan and implement your very own “Wild Goose Chase” on some unsuspecting soul of course).

October 31: Halloween of Course! (A day when all the Great Hags, Harpies, and Heathens dress up in colorful crony costumes to woo witches, curse cockamammes, or bob for apples!)

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And for some terrific Pumpkin Art, take a peek at the crazy carvings of John Vickers http://www.baysystems.info/pumpkins/pages/dress8.htm