Damien Galeone

October is for Halloween, right? It’s a holiday which fits right into October, the spooky time of year. The leaves change, the cold weather comes, it gets dark, and Kansas City is still playing baseball. October is when things get spooky.

It’s gotten spooky in October for a long time, which is why Halloween comes then in the first place. Halloween’s 2,000 year old grandfather is Samhain, a pre-Celtic festival which marked the end of summer. End of the summer meant beginning of the winter, a scary time for anyone who doesn’t live in a block of flats or have a refrigerator and central heating. Long story short, Halloween now rules October.

But Halloween isn’t October’s only holiday.

Researching on the Internet today (taking buzzfeed quizzes) I come across a few other October holidays. There are some predictable ones, such as Black Cat Day, Wicked Witch Day, Jack-O’Lantern Day and Trick-or-Treat Day, which for some reason is on October 25th. There are also holidays dedicated to traditional monsters, such as Frankenstein’s Monster Day, Frankenstein Friday, and Dracula Bite Day.

But there are a few October holidays that aren’t so predictable.

One of these is Create a Great Funeral Day – October 30th. I suppose it makes sense that on the eve of the eve of the day of the dead, we are called to remember all of the aggravating difficulties that come along with dying. There’s hiring a good caterer, ordering a coffin that doesn’t clash with your best suit, looking lifelike, and, oh yeah, being dead.

According to the inventor of this holiday, this is a day to remind you of the benefits of planning your own “end of life event.” Right. We’ll go ahead and call that “death.”

Another strange October holiday is Haunted Refrigerator Night – October 30th. A cold chill ran up my spine when I read this. I thought I was the only one with a haunted refrigerator. It seems that whenever I close my fridge, a hungry fridge ghost emerges and takes bites out of my leftovers. To boot, he adds more veggies.

In actuality, I do have a fridge which screams. It does. I assume this is either the pipes depressurizing, air cooling, or the wails of eternal hunger pangs. Perhaps a fellow someone with a screaming fridge came up with this holiday and I say kudos for ingenuity born of kitchen terrors.

Finally, there’s National Phobia Day – October 13th. National Phobia Day is a nondenominational holiday in which we all exist together under a common deity: fear. We should celebrate by trading out favors with friends. Deal with a spider for an arachnophobe or ask your favorite anuptaphobe out on a date. Whatever you do on October 13th, go out and rub elbows with your fellow phobic.

But if you have triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13) or ishicascadiggaphobia (fear of elbows) then maybe you shouldn’t. I will stay at home that night and unironically celebrate my agoraphobia.

What if you’re afraid of national holidays?