Story time! When I was a kid, my grandma worked in an office that did a big Halloween party with costumes.

She decided she wanted to go as a scarecrow. So we made her a paper mache head and painted it for her to go over her real head. Flannel & overalls stuffed with straw.

This costume was such a big hit that she decided to sit on the porch and hand out candy in it.

It turns out that "fun times at the office when you're aware that you're looking at a person" does not really map to "okay for sitting silently in the dark while neighbors approach."

She scared the liver out of not just tiny children, which sometimes happens accidentally, but a seriously nontrivial number of parents.

She wasn't trying to be scary, she'd just say, "happy Halloween" and people would lose it.

Poor Grandma. And, uh. Poor neighbors.