SATIRE:
ST. CLOUD, MN (a completely fictional city) — City officials have banned one Halloween costume for good after a 9-year-old showed up to trick-or-treat dressed as “a St. Cloud road” and sent an entire block of ghosts, vampires and witches sprinting for their lives.
The costume was a giant chunk of cracked gray asphalt with the kid’s face peeking out of a crater in the middle, an orange traffic cone on top and a bent hubcap hanging off the side. His mom says it took three nights to make, “mostly because I kept going outside to look at the real thing for reference and losing a tire.”
“I’ve handed out candy for 31 years. I’ve seen chainsaw guys, clowns, a man dressed as my ex-husband,” said porch witness Lorraine Haugen-Bjorkstrand, who dropped a full bowl of fun-size bars into the snow. “But when that little pothole came up my steps, I felt it in my alignment.”
“Too Real for Children”
Neighbors say the screaming started around 6:15 p.m., when a group of trick-or-treaters turned the corner, saw the costume and immediately tried to steer around it like it was 8th Street in March. Two vampires collided. A ghost went down. A kid dressed as a minivan had to be towed.
“Zombies, fine. Werewolves, fine,” said a dad named Gary who did not want his last name used “because the city knows where I park.” “But a pothole that follows you up the sidewalk? That’s not Halloween. That’s my commute.”
By 7 p.m., the City Council had called an emergency meeting, which is a first, since nobody can remember the last time they met about an actual road. After four hours of debate, they voted 6-1 to ban the costume. They did not vote to fix any roads. The one “no” vote came from a member who asked if the costume could be “filled in sometime next spring, maybe.”
Other Costumes Now Banned
The new rule also bans these costumes, which the council says are “too scary for a city that has to live here”:
- The Roundabout: a kid who walks in slow circles and won’t let anyone in or out for 45 minutes.
- The Snowplow That Already Came By: dumps a wall of slush across your driveway at 5 a.m., then vanishes.
- The Minnesota Nice Neighbor: says “Oh, that’s an interesting choice” about your costume and you think about it for six years.
- The Late-April Blizzard: shows up uninvited right when you put the shovel away.
Even so, the young pothole kid has no regrets. “I got the most candy on the whole street,” he said, “because everyone just threw it at me and ran.” He says next year he’s going as the city’s road repair budget, “which is just me not showing up at all.”
Worldly Newsly Reportly is made-up comedy, so no real people, places or potholes were harmed.
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