It’s time to take a look at the treats that rank below the peanut butter chews in those orange & black wrappers, the Mary Janes, the Charleston Chews, the Tootsie Rolls, Raisins, Pencils, and whatever other ungodly things people are giving out these days.

This candy goes deeper than just taking forever to chew. Deeper than being a freaking fruit. It goes deep into the heart of darkness itself. This candy is generic. This candy is depressing. It’s so bad the dog wouldn’t eat it.

Proof I’m not over-exaggerating–

I’m always weary of places/things that are simply called what they are. The Mexican restaurant that simply says MEXICAN RESTAURANT on the sign outside. The kitchen cleaner called only CLEANER. The bag of candy called CANDY MIX. They’re hiding something. It’s not really Mexican food (it’s dogs in enchilada sauce); it’s not really kitchen cleaner (it’s blue water); it’s not really candy (it’s chemicals).

This bag has all the warning signs of extremely generic candy. Random dinosaurs– “Predators Return of the Dinosaurs” Then there’s that big 16 PCS, which acts like 16 is some staggering amount, a mega amount. This is the MEGA PARTY PACK. All this looks like candy a grizzled stranger would give you.

There’s the dextrose candies. This stuff is a product of China, and maybe dextrose is a word they use to describe the flavors over there. In America, we use words like Blue Raspberry and Tutti Fruitti. And then there’s the lollypop–I can’t even describe what this is, and I didn’t open it. Looks chalky. The dextrose candies I did open and sample. They certainly weren’t blue raspberry or tutti fruitti. They were hairspray flavored. Like when my mother used to spray her hair up with Aqua Net, and the air around her would taste like hairspay. That’s the flavor.

Then there’s this crap, 3 single-wrapped gummies–

One gummy with a wrapper all to itself. 3 of them. I’d hate to be the kid at the mega party who got 1 gummy while at least the others got 5 or 6 pieces of dextrose. I sampled the gummy too. It was orange and had a bitter flavor that wasn’t really orangey, but perhaps more tea-like.

The depression continues with Marshmallow Pumpkins:

I know you’re thinking these don’t look too bad compared to crap-fest of the dinosaur mix, but look:

At the very least, I expect the faces on my candy not to be cross-eyed. And then you might notice that the candy appears to be sparkling. Does this have glitter on it? It looks like it was something I stepped on and scraped off the bottom of my shoe.

Incidentally, when I bought these at the Dollar Tree, as the teenage cashier rang these up, she paused. She took a close look at them. I expected her to shudder, or at the very least, nod knowingly toward the ironic subtleties of buying gorky-looking marshmallows to make fun of on the internet. But instead, she said “Mmmm! These look good!” Then she looked at me and smiled. I smiled back.

Another product of China. The word beef in parentheses disturbs me. Usually beef in parentheses does.

Finally, good ol’ generic lollypops:

I have to admit I’m a fan of these. I think the drawings of the skeleton and pumpkin look old school. Something feels 1988 about these.

The way I figure it is that there’s a lollypop hierarchy depending on place and time.

Say you’re at the in line at the bank and there’s a bowl of free generic lollypops. SCORE.
The same lollypops as the only candy sitting in the pantry? SUCK.
We used to get our pumpkin at a farm that let kids pick out a grab bag filled with cheapo little treats such as these. SCORE.
But say they showed up later in your trick or treat haul?
SUCK.

Now there’s a question of what to do with this stuff. I’ve made fun of it on the internet…I’m not going to eat it…and trick-or-treaters are coming…

I wouldn’t.

Would I?

Would I?

I’m not simply calling this the greatest Halloween prop I’ve ever bought; I’m deeming this the greatest Halloween prop I’ve ever bought. Man, when you’ve been writing paragraphs about Halloween stuff for 23 days, you’ve really got to make new distinctions in your words. DEEM.

Plusses: Play on the word gourmet
Severed rat head
rat blood
cheese

Negatives: NOTHING.
Edit- There is a negative. The rat’s head is not edible. Unless you can digest plastic. Some of us can.

Disclaimer – This post was totally shortchanged by my viewing of the film This Is It. I tweeted my review in the spirit of Liz Taylor’s This Is It tweet review. Take a look at my Twitter Page

Not only did they make Michael Jackson dolls in 1984, they also made other outfits sold separately. Here, appropiately for Halloween, is the Thriller outfit on the original card. If you’re new to reading the blog, then perhaps you’re not aware of my true Michael Jackson fandom. I have a badge. I even wrote a letter to Michael Jackson once and addressed it to his mother, thinking she would more likely to give to him rather than some ditzy fan club president.

In honor of Michael Jackson’s This Is It being released at midnight, I thought I’d muse a bit on Michael Jackson’s other Halloween songs. There is of course, Thriller, which goes beyond Halloween—it’s a novelty song, but it’s really a rock and roll song, a horror film, a video defining a generation, and the biggest selling album of all time. Yes, The Biggest Selling Album of All Time. Screw that Eagles Greatest Hits compilation. It’s on my shit list for even daring to challenge Michael’s achievement–although my favorite Onion headline after Michael’s death was “Joe Walsh Executed To Keep ‘Eagles Greatest Hits’ Sales Ahead Of ‘Thriller’”

With Thriller, Michael knew he had a handle on a sort of “ghoul pop”, and throughout the years, he tried to score another hit from it again and again. This is a theme of Michael’s discography—when he had a hit, he had a HIT—and he wasn’t ashamed to try and strike gold from it twice. For instance, Smooth Criminal, Dangerous, and Blood on the Dancefloor were all cut from the same cloth, and Man in the Mirror, Heal the World, and Earth Song were all about saving children and monkeys—and that ain’t a Bubbles joke. Heal the World really was inspired by the plight of the chimps.

So I wanted to look at the other ghoulish songs in Michael’s catalogue–’Ghosts’ and ‘Is It Scary’ (Blood on the Dancefloor, 1997), and ‘Threatened’ (Invincible, 2001). This is my qualified expert review of those songs. Remember, I have a badge. And a Thriller doll outfit.

‘Ghosts’ was given the full blown Michael Jackson hoopla treatment. It was accompanied by the longest music video ever made–clocking in at 40 minutes. It was a film directed by special effects guru Stan Winston (Terminator, Jurassic Park, Aliens). It was even screened at the Cannes Film Festival. The only problem was that it was ignored by most of the world.

It’s easy to see why the project flopped. Take a look at the last 4 minutes of the film–(followed by the credits with behind the scenes footage. The project was even had its own Making Of documentary.)

It’s worth it to take a look for just the sheer shock value of seeing Michael Jackson dressed as a 300lb old man in glasses.

The characters are cartoonish and the kiddie jokes make the whole thing look more like it belonged on the Disney Channel than at special screenings before Stephen King’s Thinner in theaters. Audiences laughed and booed through it, and even then they still had to sit through Thinner, the poor bastards.

Part of the problem was Michael misread the culture. The video for Thriller wowed us when we were kids, but we had all grown up, and Michael didn’t grow up with us. Michael Jackson was trying too hard to be Michael Jackson.

And in the credits of the video plays the song is ‘Is It Scary’, a song originally intended for the Addams Family Values soundtrack. Like most of Michael’s deals and endorsements after his issues in 1993, this deal too was scrapped, referred to as “contractual difficulties”.

Then the movie even went so far to include a little dig at Michael:

When I saw this in the theater, knowing full well that Michael’s song was supposed to be in the movie, I was ticked. And you know what, that movie sucked worse than Thinner, Jurassic Park 2, and that movie where Robin Williams plays a 12 year old boy COMBINED. Addams Family Values was added to my shit list, along with the Eagles, Latoya Jackson, and that dog in Moonwalker that runs off into the woods and causes everyone all kinds of problems.

Here is the shorter video just for the song Ghosts, featuring a mash-up of clips from the longer film.

Does this video have a moonwalking skeleton? YES.
Does this video have Michael Jackson dancing in a fat suit? YES.
Does this video have Michael Jackson taking his face off? YES.
Does it have new choreographed dance moves with zombies? YES.
Does the song have a great hook? YES.

It’s like Michael knew the formula, but it didn’t work, and it must have been so frustrating when audiences ignored it. I think people will come to re-evaluate some of his work, and even I have been re-evaluating it. As a fan, I was into everything he did–but I was also 18 by this time. Everything I once loved now seemed cheesy. I couldn’t be wowed. I was too cynical.

But what I can see now is that if you showed this to a kid, they would totally dig it. That’s what he wanted. He loved seeing kids’ faces in awe. And let’s face it, he loved putting that special effects make-up on. I’m totally on board now. It has a moonwalking skeleton. Did I mention that?

Then, closing the Invincible album, there is the song ‘Threatened’. This is fan-made video, and I think they did a pretty neat job.

Another page out of the Thriller play book, this song features the Twilight Zone’s Rod Serling in Vincent Price’s place. It’s not the greatest Michael Jackson song–but at the same time, the entire Invincible album is the album Justin Timberlake wished he recorded.

What’s more interesting about this song is that it now formally closes Michael Jackson’s final album. It’s like The End on Abbey Road. The final line is Rod Serling saying “What you’ve just witnessed could be the end of a particularly terrifying nightmare. It isn’t. It’s the beginning.” I think the horror fan in Michael might have accepted that as a final coda.

We are going to go see This Is It and eat dinner at the Cheesecake Factory in celebration of MJ’s life. Cheesecake Factory just feels right to remember Michael. I’ll let you know what I think. Mine is the only review you can trust, the review of a qualified expert. With a badge.

Update: See the comments section for a few other honorable mentions that go beyond the solo MJ catalog:

Somebody’s Watching Me – Rockwell
Torture – The Jacksons
The Boogie Man – The Jackson 5

I bought this bag of popcorn balls in a strange moment. I was in a grocery store where I never shop–a small, non-chain store. The unfamiliarity of the store lended all of the products a new gleam to them. When I saw this bag of popcorn balls, it wasn’t just like, oh hey–look popcorn balls. It was HEY LOOK POPCORN BALLS.

And well, I don’t really have anything else to say about them, except HEY LOOK POPCORN BALLS.

The girlfriend took these photos and I think they’re artfully done. This is one of the things we do on the weekends, photograph balls of popcorn.

I bought these balls back in September, and it was the first time I dipped my toes into the Halloween season. I should have started off having a Reese cup and a pumpkin beer, but instead I started by getting kernels stuck in my teeth. I don’t think I’ve ever even eaten a popcorn ball, and I don’t think I’ll eat one again.

I’ve got the rest of the bag to pawn off on Halloween night to trick-or-treaters (unless any roommates proclaim their undying love for popcorn balls–speak now or forever hold your peace). I’m thinking I’ll give them to the adults trick-or-treating for non-present babies. I can tolerate older kids on the cusp of being teenagers, but adults trick-or-treating under the ruse of a baby is a shame.

Exploiting a baby in order to gain candy? That’s worse than the balloon boy family. Also, anyone dressed as balloon boy automatically gets a popcorn ball. And anyone dressed as Sarah Palin automatically gets an OPEN popcorn ball that I licked.

Halloween Kazoos are a brilliant idea and–without overstatement–the greatest innovation in trick-or-treat of the last decade. I’ve seen a lot of dumb things in the stores this year too. Boxes of crayons? Mini-velvet coloring pages? Mini playing cards? No kid wants that stuff. But every kid wants an annoying noisemaker with cartoon bats on it. Yes, I speak for all children now.

Just as I’ve been eating and sampling all the candy and items I’ve bought so far for Halloween, I wanted to try these too. I was just gonna give it a blow, wipe it off, and stick it back in the bag. It meant some kid, somewhere, was going to get a used kazoo. I realized that this was gross, but it was just gonna be one little blow. And I was going to wipe it off. By Halloween next week, any sort of lingering bacteria would be long dead.

Besides, parents are supposed to teach their kids to wash things first. I learned the hard way. Big Bad Wolf Coaster Souvenir Cup. Coke. Strange chunk.

But after giving the kazoo one blow, I realized it was THE FUNNEST THING EVER. Instantly, I had ideas of starting the world’s largest kazoo band, but it already exists. I was going to settle for doing a kazoo version of Metallica’s Enter Sandman, but that already exists too. I am totally keeping the kazoo for myself, so rest assure–there is not an unsuspecting child out there getting a used kazoo with my spit on it. (Which is considered an honor in some societies.)

(Societies run by dogs.)

But you gotta figure unsuspecting children get shit handed to them all the time. There’s even a show about it. America’s Funniest Home Videos.

Have a great weekend ya’ll.

I’m working on my MA in Writing at Johns Hopkins. Hard to believe, I know. I write a lot of this blog to blow off the steam of stupidity in my head, but I also write it as a sort of evil way to subject an audience to first drafts of my writing.

This Halloween countdown I’ve been writing sections of what I hope to turn into a completed chapter one day, and what I’m workshopping in class this week. I’m actually ready to kill Halloween because of it. Believe me, just because this stuff came from my life, doesn’t mean it adds up in any meaningful way on paper.

What does the narrator want?
What is the emotional arc?
From what perspective does the narrator tell the story?

You start applying those questions to a story about the time you cried in the store for a Ninja Turtle costume, and shit starts going down the drain. But I thought I’d show you a portion of a 2nd draft, taken from stuff I’ve written here on The Surfing Pizza all month long.

***

I couldn’t be a toilet. I couldn’t be a shadow of a Mummy. I could be the Mummy if I wanted, but not the shadow. My mother shot down all of my brilliant ideas. And no, the dog couldn’t wear a costume either. It wasn’t easy being a kid, especially at Halloween. And poor Spritzy. The all white dog was resigned to a lifetime of being a snowball for Halloween, year after year.

Every year, I wanted a store-bought costume, but my mother insisted on homemade costumes, pulling together stuff from around the house and second hand stores. But Mom wasn’t the type who kept copies of Good Housekeeping lying around the house; she was the kind who read the National Enquirer, while long Virginia Slim 100s dangled from her lips. She was no Martha Stewart.

Evidence: Melissa’s infamous ghost costume.

My sister was part toddler and part walking Cabbage Patch doll. Mom made her a ghost costume, using an old sheet from the linen closet. Light blue was the only color sheets she had. It would work. She cut out a face-sized hole, and laid the blue sheet over the back of Melissa’s potato-shaped head, like a veil. Then she painted my sister’s face a ghastly white with Covergirl foundation, and smeared streaks of Maybellene lipstick down her face for blood.

We went trick-or-treating in my grandmother’s neighborhood, an aging Catholic community where Mom had grown up. Because many of the old ladies knew Mom, we had to stop personally in each house.

We waited in Ms. Helen’s living room while she hobbled around in the kitchen. A painting of Pope John Paul stared down from the wall, hanging over a couch with plastic slipcovers. We choked on the smell of floral spray and baked goods. Mom whispered at us to remember our thank yous.

Ms. Helen was wrapping up special cookies, cookies only for the familiar children. A bowl full of the terminally-ill-colored peanut butter chews sat next to the door for unknown children and hoodlums. I knew them from their orange and black wrappers.

Ms. Helen thought I was cute enough dressed as a vampire, smiling at me wanly, but gasped when she saw Melissa in her bloody ghost costume. She thought my sister, with the pale face and blue sheet veil, was the Blessed Mother.

“Oh, how darling, Margi, you dressed her as Mary the Blessed Mother!” Ms. Helen exclaimed. Mom didn’t correct her.

I also incurred the wrath of Mom’s creativity one year, the year I planned to be a Ninja Turtle. Leonardo was my favorite Ninja Turtle. I begged for the licensed costume, the “real” costume, the one in the store with the picture of the actual Leonardo on the box. But Mom had an idea—a tortoise costume, which could be converted to a Ninja Turtle costume. It was also adult-sized, but she said she could fix it to my size with a couple of bobby pins. My mother thought she could fix everything with bobby pins.

She had it all figured out. I could wear my karate belt with it. But Leonardo was a black belt Ninja. I only had a white belt, which they gave to everyone who paid for the karate class. The next problem was the front chest part, which wasn’t muscular-looking like a Ninja Turtle, but brown and soft, like a Cuddly Turtle. However, my mother assured me she could address both of these problems, and that I would look just like “Leroy” on Halloween.

Red flags were everywhere.

I still felt like a Ninja Turtle that day. I couldn’t wait to put the foam tortoise suit on. While Mom warmed up a pre-trick-or-treat dinner of frozen chicken chunks and green beans, I karate-chopped and high-kicked my way around the house. I was contractually-obligated to eat at least half of this meal, or no trick-or-treat. That was the deal. I suffered through it, and finally it was time to get dressed.

Without the plastic mask that came with the licensed costume, I was stuck with my head—my stupid human head, which didn’t look like a turtle at all. I had a bandana cut from a blue t-shirt tied around my eyes, my curly brown hair sprouting all around, and a foam tortoise suit bobby pinned together. Then I had to wear my jacket over top of it.

“But Ninja Turtles don’t wear jackets,” I protested.

Meanwhile, Melissa had a knack for choosing costumes that would ensure Mom spent two hours applying make-up from the makeup bag. Princesses. Cheerleaders. Pretty Witch. The Sock Hop Girl with the pink felt poodle.

Mom applied the make-up on Melissa’s face, and told us about sock hop dances and the fashion of the strange poodle. Melissa sat very still for the eye shadow, her face very serious and poised, beyond eight years old. I watched. She wanted to be a grown-up. I wanted to be a Ninja Turtle forever. I karate chopped at the poodle.

It’s official. I’m making treat bags. Read that as though I said it with all the gravitas of announcing the birth of my child. I’ve kinda known I was going to make treat bags all month. There just seemed to be a perfect mixture of candy and toys I was buying that serendipitously added up to the contents a treat bag.

Plus, I’m kind of in a competition here. My neighbors have about 10 strings of lights on their house and trees. It looks like Christmas, but it’s all Halloween. The kids are going be wowed by it. They have 40 monsters hanging from their porch too. I have 2. I’m not going to have the flashy house. I’m going to have the TREAT BAGS.

I haven’t hammered down the exact contents yet. There’s some ratios involved. There will be full treat bag coverage next week. So these plastic creatures are one of the things going in the bags.

24 creatures, 1 dollar.

So this long arm/short arm skeleton is sorta like the main guy in the bag. There’s 6 of him. He’s unique. I’ve never seen anything like him before. Perhaps his long arm/short arm is supposed to give the perspective of crawling towards you, with the longer arm in the foreground. But this is a flimsy piece of plastic that costs 4 cents, so I’m not convinced that much thought was put into it.

4 spiders. Some pretty nice spiders too.

There’s only one ant! One is the loneliest number. He’s the best. Calling him a Halloween Creature however is stretching it. I might not put him in a treat bag. I might keep him for myself. He reminds of Anty in Honey I Shrunk the Kids. Damn. Now there’s a movie that made you regret stepping on all those ants. I used to love killing ants until I saw that movie. Rick Moranis taught me morality.

2 more spiders, but these are spider rings.

2 scorpions.

I used to work at a record store when I was a teenager. The store was located in a redneck area where the year was perpetually 1988. Tassles on leather jackets, feathered hair on men, a lot of fans of the band, Foreigner. It was 1999. There was also a high school across the street, and teenagers in trenchcoats and Insane Clown Posse t-shirts, but that is an entirely different traumatic story. For the purpose of this traumatic story, I’m focusing solely on these feathered hair men. One feathered hair man.

The cash register was next to a wall of stickers. The stickers were a pet peeve of mine because of the way people use to just stare open-mouthed at them. Everyone made the same jokes too, ribbing their friends that they ought to buy the N’Sync sticker for their car. JFK Jr. had died and everyone suddenly thought the Dead Kennedys sticker was so timely and hilarious. I stood there at the register, listening to the same sticker conversations over and over and over.

But one time, one of the feathered hair guys said something that I haven’t been able to get out of my head for the last decade. It bothered me so much, it just stuck. He asked if I had any “Scorps” stickers.

“What?”

“The Scorps. You got anything with the Scorps?”

“Who are the Scorps?”

He was saying the 80s band The Scorpions. Rock You Like a Hurricane. Now, everytime I see/hear/think the word scorpion, that man and “You got anything with the Scorps” sentence replays in my head.

A fucking scorpion killed Anty in Honey I Shrunk the Kids too. Pardon my French. I think it was warranted.

6 flies. This bag is more like Insect Creatures than Halloween Creatures.

2 snakes. Just your average plastic snake. Overall, the details on these creatures are pretty sweet for 4 cents worth.

And 1 bat. Sure, there’s going to be an inherent unfairness between the treat bag with the awesome big bat, or the treat bag with a stinking little fly. But maybe the stinking little fly bag will have an extra Snickers bar. Then again, what if you’d really rather have two Snickers bars than an awesome big bat? What is fair?

It’s clear the making of the treat bags is going to raise some ethics questions I haven’t seen the likes of since pondering killing the ants.

I’ve covered my trials and tribulations of Halloween, my mother’s often creative interpretations of how to do our costumes, and even the dog’s forays into cape-wearing. But what about Dad? Well Dad had a very important role. He was the candy guy.

Dad’s role in Halloween was handing out candy while smoking Salems on the porch. He didn’t wear a costume, but he did have a mask for just one trick-or-treater. The trick-or-treater was Alicia, a blue-eyed, timid little girl with apples in her cheeks. She was a neighbor, three grades behind us, and kind of a baby. Her costumes were usually something like Little Bo Peep or Fairy Princess. Dad planned the night around making Alicia scream. The little girl had a legendary scream, a shriek of ear-piercing proportions. I swore I could hear it while I was out trick or treating with Mom and my sister.

Alicia was always one of the first trick-or-treaters because she had to go bed early. He’d wait at the window to see her knock on the door, and when he saw her, he’d slip on the mask–this deranged serial killer mask with wild hair–and then charge down the stairs screaming, holding out a Snickers bar in his hand. She’d scream, shaking too much to even take the Snickers bar.

And then it was back to solemnity and Salems for Dad.

Each year, I couldn’t wait to get back from trick-or-treating to hear the story of how loud Alicia’s scream was, which was always described as louder than the year before. One year, Alicia’s Mom even came over in advance to ask that Mr. John not scare the little girl. He did anyway. My Mom pretended to be upset but smiled anyway when he confessed.

I try to picture Alicia’s horror. 6 feet tall, former prison guard. Serial killer mask with a twisted face, bubbling skin, mangled beard. Who needs a 6 foot animatronic from Kmart? I always liked when adults tried to scare me. I’m also sure no 6-foot tall adult ever charged towards me in a serial killer mask and flannel shirt, screaming. I might have screamed like little Alicia too.

I always liked when people sat very still on their porch in a costume, and you couldn’t tell if they were real or not. Sitting still is my scare-tactic for handing out candy. I think it’s more unnerving. And plus, I just wouldn’t be able to do the “serial killer charge” any justice. Dad was the master at that. Then again, maybe one day I’ll have personal vendetta against a specific five year old.

Then the kid gloves will be off.

You might be remember Gory Foot from two weeks ago, a bloody plastic foot that tried on all my shoes. Well Gory Foot is back, this time in the girlfriend’s shoes.

Because she has a different purse to go with each shoe, she also thought it would be great to pair the shoes and purses, which I suspect she just wanted to show off. My apologies to some of you guys and some of you girls. I don’t doubt there’s one male reader out there thinking, oooh cute shoes, and I salute you, shoe-noticing male reader. The rest of us must suck it up and endure SHOE AND PURSE HELL.

SHOE AND PURSE HELL is a special place that appears suddenly, ripping open a hole in the earth, creating a sucking vortex, swallowing all those who nearly made it out of the Macy’s alive.

Then she says, “oh wait, let me take a look at this purse.”

So close to exit, yet so far away. The relationship between the women’s shoes and purses sections and the doorways is defined by the empiricle gravitational constant, and is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

If my science sounds a little phony, blame Wikipedia.

She was worried some of you would think her shoes (and therefore feet) are really big. She also worried you harsh close-reading Surfing Pizza readers would notice scuff marks on her shoes, wiping down the shoes in the bathroom before they were considered presentable for the blog. She also told me not to write that, and I assured her I would.

I really let her take over the photography here. I sat on the bed drinking a beer while she searched her closet to put out only the finest for Fashion Gory Foot. Then she’d be digging for the matching purse.

“Doesn’t this look good together?”

I could hear the seams of the Earth beginning to tear. The bed started shaking. NOT SHOE AND PURSE HELL OPENING UP.

“See how well these match?”

This picture was the most important for her to take, because this picture features a Croc. It’s some kind of fancy Croc, not like those Smurfy ones. CROC HELL is a very real place, working in spirit to lead you astray. I know that CROC HELL is real because I have been to a place in the outlet mall.

I balked at including this shoe because to me it looked like the other 3 or 33,592 heels she had already taken pictures of. But no, apparently this one has some purple in it and the others do not. So there you are, Gory Foot in a heel with some purple in it.

I have to admit, something is hypnotising about seeing Gory Foot in these shoes, and I think it’s the blood that really complements all the shoes and purses. And that plastic bone chip plays well off the patterns of the purse. Just because I don’t like to visit SHOE AND PURSE HELL doesn’t mean I don’t notice coordinating plastic bone chip when I see it.

(Heads up that there’s a bonus Gory Foot on The Surfing Pizza’s Facebook Page.)