Saturday, January 09, 2010

Halloween Engineer way to clean a garage

So, I was doing my pre-spring cleaning of the garage that I always do.  This time the purpose was to get the car actually in the garage.  In any case, I am a "holiday engineer", which basically means that I build things (typically dead and scary), along with kid-friendly creatures, for Halloween decorations at the house.  Back in 2000, I built this guy:

He was sitting in my garage for many years.  I would pull him out for halloween and them back in the garage he goes.  Well, this year, I decided it was time to let him go. So, off I went working on cleaning the garage today and I get to him.  He is too big to fit in the dumpster I rented.  He is made of chicken wire, wood, drywall plaster and Great Stuff expanding foam insulation. I decided the best course of action was to start breaking him down into manageable pieces.

I break out the handy reciprocating saw, put on the safety glasses and go to work, starting on his arms.  I cut off the arms at the elbows, thereby releasing the candles.  I then move onto the lower part of his body and start cutting away.  I look up and see several of my neighbors watching with looks of horror. I share a glance and go back to work on him.

The coup de grace was when I cut off his head and and then carried the head by the neck stump with everyone still watching.  I still had a little fake blood left in the in the sack attached to the neck, so that was dripping a little bit, which just added to the fun.

In the end, the kids in the neighborhood explained to their horrified parents what my "candle-dude" was.  You see, when I build these things, I do it so all can see them going together.  It helps to minimize the frightening of ToTs (Trick or Treaters).  It also allows them to be in the know when things light up for Halloween.

1 comments:

Garage spring cleanup | Brendan Macdonald`s Home Issue said...

[...] Halloween Engineer way to clean a garage [...]