Would You Rather Be Afraid of the Dark or of Zombies?

As I admitted the other day to a bunch of kids, I'm quite scared of the dark. My imagination, as of lately, has gotten a little away from me. I'm always worried about the worst and when something bad happens, it's a pretty permanent part of my brain and worries.

Today. Didn't. Help.

I don't know if I was ever a huge fan of Halloween (ok, maybe when I was a kid with a bag full of candy)... but costumes are too much work and this partying in the costume just never suited me. I'm not a dress up kind of person.

Then, I moved to NYC and happened to be working in a horrible, scary neighborhood (scarier than the dark. And zombies.) My perceptions of Halloween changed. For the worse. I hated it, but more than anything, it scared the living daylights out of me. I would travel hours out of the way to get home because I was so scared. I contemplated calling into work sick, because I was so scared. But last year, it changed. I worked in a neighborhood that wasn't scary. And I don't much remember have my fears of Halloween last year.

Today, though, brought it all back. Within 10 minutes of leaving the building and making the way to the car (because I knew I was leaving with a co-worker who drives as soon as we could possibly leave), there were shots fired across the street. 3 of them. The first one fired, and I actually stood there dumbly. Maybe I was asking myself what I should do in a situation like this. Maybe I was asking myself if this was really truly happening. Maybe I was just trying to figure out if the shot that was fired had harmed anyone. The other two weren't heard because I headed back into work, where they put our building on lock-down and held us until we had the clear from the police (who don't much make a presence in our neighborhood, despite a recent drive-by, murder, and now THIS. Let's just say NYPD isn't on my favorites list lately.)

So. Today it is so. Halloween is not a good holiday. My future children may be punished by the paranoia that NYC is giving me about the holiday as a whole. They'll be lucky if I even let them out of the house. Breathe.

Today was also a day that NYC and I didn't end on good terms. Not only is the holiday messed up, my fears are now skyrocketing into space, the NYPD is surprisingly missing from the scene, BUT my metrocard stopped working (for the 2nd time in 4 months -- FU MTA -- All because of an MTA bus machine f*ing up the magnetic strip on my card). Today was a day that I do NOT love NYC. Today was a day where I wished I were anywhere BUT NYC.

Except for the sign above. It made me smile, because I love ZOMBIES! Maybe that will be the stipulation... my future children can celebrate Halloween ONLY if we get the be a family of ZOMBIES!! :)

Hope your Halloween was sweeter than mine!