When you blame squirrels on your mid-life crisis

     Tonight, I walked into my kitchen to see my dad sewing little hats on stuffed squirrels. Last week he ordered stuffed-squirrels online. Not taxidermy shit, but like teddy bears. Yesterday he went shopping and found little hats and stickers to decorate them.

       And now on a Friday night, I come home to witness my father going through a mid-life crisis. He already spends hours every day doing jigsaw puzzles. The singular image of my father, that will last for years, is of him looking down at a half-finished puzzle every time I walk by the dining room. Whenever my friends come over they like to sit down with him and try put a few pieces together. Then they realize that the 2,000 pieces of the blue sky look exactly alike.
     The squirrels, with the little hats, are part of his Halloween costume. Every year my parents go to the same Halloween party. I used to go with my parents when the Halloween still meant trick or treating, now I spend Halloween like all other adolescents. This years theme for the Halloween party is "welcome to my nightmare". My parents number one fear is being attacked by squirrels.

Queue the stuffed squirrels, the hats with the skull and cross bones, fake blood, the adhesable scars. Last night, my mom walked into my room looking for a headband. Thirty minutes later a squirrel was attached to it.
                                                                                                
Once my eyes fully captured the sight of my dad delicately pinning a cowboy hat onto a squirrel with his sausage-link fingers, this is the conversation that followed.
Me: You are so fucking weird.
Dad: It's called being creative. What are you dressing up as? Probably something stupid.
(I open my mouth to answer, but he interrupts.)
Dad: You must be dressing up as boring girl. You've worn the costume for seventeen years.
Me: (laughter) Fuck you.
Dad: Your mom is acting the same way. When I asked her what her biggest fear was, she said it was her children getting hurt. How lame is that? Who the hell wants to dress up like their dead or injured child? So I came up with this idea.
Me: Of you being eaten alive by squirrels?
Dad: There's actually a story behind it. Do you wanna hear it?
Me: Oh hell no.
(exit to bedroom)

This squirrel is going to rip you apart.

Happy Halloween.