Point:

I Think I’ll Be a Witch for Halloween This Year

I’m not sure. I think it could be fun. I have a lot of ideas. I’ve always wanted to dress up as a Rodent of Unusual Size (R.O.U.S.) from The Princess Bride, but who has time to make a costume these days? My bio professor assigns something like 500 pages of reading a week, so how could I possibly find the time to make the costume of a mangier, marginally more homicidal version of Chuck E. Cheese? What do you mean, you don’t think that Charles is homicidal? Are you out of your mind? He has the smile of a man who has disassembled a human corpse for his own amusement. Anyway, I also considered going as sexy Mar-a-Lago, but I didn’t have access to 300 confidential documents. Time and again I develop grand ambitions, “shooting for the moon” as it were. Not only do I fail to land among the metaphorical stars, I come crashing back down to Earth with the knowledge that I am too profoundly mediocre, too shot through with human foibles, to ever fulfill my dreams for myself. I might just go to Spirit Halloween and buy a witch costume for like 15 bucks or something. It’s not the most creative thing, but it’ll do the job, and with everyone being so into crystals and shit I think something occult could be a hit. You know?

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Counterpoint:

Thou Art a Wretched Sinner, Utterly Unworthy of God’s Love

Verily, I hath not spent all my life in the True & Christian profession of witchfinding for an impudent charlatan such as thyself to go about making merry on the subject of witchcraft. I am certain that all of my esteemed and pious readership hath read Despotamius Wycliffe’s illustrious treatise Daemonologie, or The Science and Physicks of Witchcraft; Being a Collation of Accounts of the Misdeeds of Witches, Warlocks, and All Others Who Worship Satan. However, on the three-penny chance that thou hast not, I shall recount portions of this insightful tome. In the once-godly town of Sudbury, in the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, Brother Despotamius remarked that witchcraft had insidiously made its way into the minds and hearts of the populace; that it began as light-hearted experimentations with new physicks, such as cooking bull testicle stew to cure syphilis. From there, it progressed to more advanced forms of witchcraft, such as Black Forked-tongue Lizard Babylonian Bowel Cleansing Magick and an obscure form of perverted Flemish necromancy known as “the Antwerp squeeze.” Soon, by various spells and inducements, the whole population was subjected to the will of Satan. This is what could become of ye, shouldst thou insist on continuing such vile jests about witchcraft! Thy flesh shall drop from thy bones and thou shalt be infested with weevils as though thou were a corpse, for thou hast gone out from the presence of the Lord and consigned thyself to eternal fire! Thy so-called “Witch Costume” bears the mark of Cain! Witchcraft may be an object of mockery for ye now, to be imitated childishly by costumes and various false vestments, but soon it shall develop earnestly and thou shalt all be on thy knees before the red scaly visage of Lucifer and his minions! Let this be a warning to ye all! Egad!