Written by Jonathan Wojcik
Goodbye, Gordmans.
Gordman's was a store I only ever heard about when I came to Iowa, and with its shelves upon shelves of Halloween goods, it was kind to me during the year and a half we lived in a state made mostly out of corn.
By the end of September, 2016 however, we are now living in
Portland, Oregon, and I don't know that I'll ever see Gordman's again during a Halloween season. I paid it one final visit only a day or two before our big move, and like every time, they still had a couple more spooks left to discover...
Skull, or Ghost?
I'm PRETTY positive this is supposed to be a stylized skull, but all I can see is a pitiful, wailing, peanut-shaped ghost with a surgical scar in its stomach and the most pathetic face I've ever seen, I guess because he's getting over all that stomach surgery, or maybe that's the way he died.
Bucket With a Ballroom Mask
Look at her, our little girl, our little bucket girl who is a bucket, all grown up already. All grown up and ready for a night on the town. The bucket town. She's going to be the belle of the bucket ball. Maybe she'll find her bucket prince? Or princess? We don't really know what kind of genders or social titles buckets might have. We would ask our bucket daughter but that would be silly. She is a bucket. She is not alive.
She grew up so fast.
Onion People Riding Frogs
Well, they make ME think of onions, but they could also just be horrible, earless Halloween elves. It's also possible that they are not "riding" these frogs, but merely sneaking up on them to dress them in hats. Frogs won't usually allow themselves to be hatted without a fight, but once the hat is there, they warm up to it rather quickly.
Non-Menacing Pumpder
Gordman's was also home to the scariest spider-pumpkin I've ever seen, but then they put out these little grey-green specimens, innocent as can be.
Don't trust them.
Skeletons in Birdcages
We need to get a little serious for a minute here, even a little
political. It's election season, after all, and you need to be aware of hard-hitting issues before you settle on your vote. Did you know that every year, hundreds of skeletons are crammed into smallish cages with only a pumpkin or some kind of bird for entertainment? They don't require food, water or sleep and they don't experience pain, but skeletons do get very cranky when they are bored and then they verbally abuse us while we try to do an honest day's work at our skeleton factory. We're pretty sure they could even get up and get out of their cages anytime they wanted, but they enjoy the excuse to scream at people. With your generous donation, we can afford to provide these skeletons with a selection of magazines. That oughta shut them up for a while.
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