Episode 71 • Halloween
TP
Egg
Creepy
Spooky
Coffin
Story
Roger: I can’t believe it’s finally Halloween! Hey, wanna do something fun?
Mary: No, Roger. I just want to go trick or treating.
Roger: Oh c’mon! That stuff’s for kids. Let’s go pay a visit to my neighbor. He never hands out candy! Last year, me and my friends TP’d and egged his whole house… We should do it again! And it just so happens I’ve got some toilet paper and eggs with me. What do you say? I think we should teach him a lesson!
Mary: I don’t know, Roger… That man’s really creepy. He never comes out during the day. He hardly ever talks to anybody… There’s gotta be something wrong with him.
Roger: Oh, c’mon! It’s Halloween! Let’s have some fun! Look, his house is just over there… It looks like there’s a light on, so he must be home. Hey, look… this year he’s decorated his yard! And pretty well, too. Look at all of that!
Mary: Yeah, this is kinda spooky, actually. Oh my gosh! Look at that coffin! It looks so real…
Roger: Do you want to go open it and see what’s inside?
Mary: No, no way! I want to leave.
Roger: Little Mary is too sca-ared. Ah, ah. Fine, I’ll open it!
Neighbor: Boo!
Roger: Ahhhh! It’s a vampire!!!!
Mary: Ahhhh!
Neighbor: Kids! All year preparing for this moment. Ah, ah. Maybe next year I should be a mummy…
Questions
Who's excited for Halloween? I know I am. I don't have any big plans, obviously with the pandemic and everything, but I think if you do have a costume, it's still fun to dress up. If you do dress up, and you want to tag me and show me your costume, I'd be really curious to see what you dress up as.
TP
'Last year, me and my friends TP’d and egged his whole house...'
Teepee, in this case, is a verb.
• If you’ve TP’d someone’s house, what did you cover the house with? Strips of tissues or strips of toilet paper?
Teepee stands for toilet paper. If you've teepeed to someone's house, that means you've covered it with strips of toilet paper.
• Why would you TP someone’s house?
Well, it's pretty common. I don't want to say it's common, because I'm hoping it's not common, but some kids do it on Halloween just to prank other people, especially as a punishment for neighbors that don't hand out candy, that don't give out candy. Some people can do-- Because it's pretty annoying to have toilet paper, obviously, all over your yard or all over your house. It's a form of punishment and vandalism as well.
• What would you do if someone TP’d your house?
Obviously, I would get really mad. I guess I would get mad. I don't think there could be anything that I could do, so I would just try to clean it up and collect all the toilet paper that's all over my house. I don't know. I guess I'd be really frustrated.
Egg
'Last year, me and my friends TP’d and egged his whole house...'
• If you egg someone’s house, do you throw eggs at it or do you leave egg by the front door?
No, you do not leave eggs by the front door as if they were a present. You throw eggs at someone's house, usually at the door or the windows.
• Why would you egg someone’s house?
Well, same thing with teepeeing someone's house. Maybe you're mad at them. I'm not suggesting this, you guys. Just because your neighbor is not very friendly, that doesn't mean that you should go egg his house. Sometimes you're going to see that in movies, where on Halloween, kids carry around eggs, and they, for some reason, decide to egg other people's houses.
• Which do you think it’s worse? Having your house egged or TP’d?
Oof, that's a difficult one to answer. I think maybe having my house teepeed isn't as bad because at least it's not dirty. It's messy, and obviously, it's really hard to clean up, but at least it's not gross. It's not disgusting because eggs when they break, it just gets messy. I guess, if I had to choose, I would go with having my house teepeed.
Creepy
'That man’s really creepy.'
• If someone is creepy, do they make you feel comfortable or uncomfortable?
If someone is creepy, they make you feel uncomfortable and scared as well, so you definitely don't feel at ease. If somebody is creepy, can you say exactly what it is that makes you scared and uncomfortable? No. This is really important because the word creepy means that you feel uncomfortable, and you feel scared, but you don't know exactly what it is about that person that makes you feel that way. It's more of a feeling of uncertainty like, "I feel like I shouldn't trust this person. I'm scared. I'm scared, literally scared."
• What else can be creepy?
A person can be creepy if they make us uncomfortable and scared, but also, a place can be creepy like a graveyard, because you get that feeling of, "I'm not totally comfortable. I'm a little scared. I don't know exactly what it is that's making me uncomfortable." It's not like, "Boo. Oh, that was creepy." No, that was scary because I know what made me scared. Creepy is different. Also, a situation. You can describe a situation as creepy.
• Can you think of someone you thought was creepy?
I haven't met many creepy people, I guess a few. The most recent person that I met that was creepy, or at least I thought he was creepy, obviously wasn't objectively creepy, at least I think so, it was this guy that I met at the Language Exchange, and he seemed fine at first, but then he kept texting me a lot, and he knew I had a boyfriend. I just felt really uncomfortable. It wasn't just that. There was something about his persistence. He wouldn't leave me alone, even when I asked him to leave me alone. When he didn't listen to me when I asked him to please not text me and just leave me my space, that's when I thought, "This is creepy. This is not normal. There's something that doesn't make me feel comfortable when I'm with this person or when this person texts me." I decided to not talk to him again.
Spooky
'Yeah, this is kinda spooky, actually.'
• If a place or situation is spooky, does it make you feel scared or relaxed?
If a situation or place is spooky, it makes you feel scared
• What do you associate something spooky with? Ghosts and other supernatural things or regular scary things, like spiders or a strange person?
Again, here's the difference between spooky and creepy. Creepy can be used in any situation for both ghosts as well as people or situations. Spooky, when you say the word spooky, you connect it with ghosts and other supernatural things. That's why it's used mostly on Halloween, but it's said in a fun way. Spooky, it's like, "Ooh, spooky." It's not seriously scary. Just a little like, "Ooh. Oh, that's so scary." Just a little bit, in a fun way.
• What are some spooky decorations you could decorate your house with?
I don't really decorate my house for Halloween. I know a lot of people do. Some spooky decorations that are really cool would be skeletons, like life-size skeletons. Those are really cool or even webs like cobwebs, spider webs, the fake ones. What else is pretty spooky? I guess these two things. Then, fake ghosts and stuff. All of those are pretty spooky.
Coffin
'Look at that coffin! It looks so real…'
• What can you usually find in a coffin? Someone who is alive or dead?
Hopefully, it's someone who is dead. In a coffin, you find a corpse, someone who is dead.
• What are coffins usually made out of?
They are usually made out of wood, and they go in the ground once the person is buried.
• What creatures do we usually associate coffins with?
I'm talking about not real people. It would be Dracula, vampires, in general. They are usually the creatures that we associate coffins with. Do you have any coffins around the-- I'm just kidding. I'm not going to ask you any personal question about coffins, so no worries.
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