October 26, 2004:
I've got a new best friend, and his name is Standing Skull Man. Here lies one of those decorations you'll pant at for over a month at the party stores, kept at bay due to its sickeningly high price. Then, a week before the holiday, the stores panic over the amount of unsold crap, lose their minds and bust out the red tags for an unprecedented round of Everything Must Go. I dunno how much Standing Skull Man originally cost, but it waddn't no thirty-five bucks. That's what I paid, and my new best friend was worth every cent. Meet him, greet him:
Just as soon as he's out of the box, meant me. The uncreative naming of Standing Skull Man aside, it's the kind of thing you look at once, twice, maybe a dozen times before realizing just how deep your desire to own it is. Standing more than six and a half feet tall, Standing Skull Man is more of a reaper than a mere skeleton, with flowing mummy robes and hands not even the most polished southern gentleman would kiss upon first introductions. The refreshingly truthful image of Standing Skull Man on the box clearly shows that only half his body height can truly be credited, the other half being made up by a big thin pole attached to a crudely spraypainted wooden stand. Standing Skull Man, say it isn't so.
After cutting the gallon of tape and managing to get the box open, I found Standing Skull Man biting down on his robe in a months-long effort to avoid screaming out in claustrophobic fear and thus spoiling the surprise that he's in there. Fuckhead didn't even see himself on the box when they stuffed him inside. Or, possibly, cheap bandages are just what skeleton ghost people eat.
Now came the tough part. Being unassembled is to Standing Skull Man what being trapped in a really warm room was to Frosty. He cannot exist like this, and won't regrow a heart until I put him together. There's actually a sticker on the box touting that you can finish constructing the thing in "under 5 minutes," but that's only if you pluck the rare package containing rods that aren't too rusted and misshapen to fit into each other without first trying to adjust the tube space with a flexible butterknife. Tread on I would, but with a puss on.
If cats have nine lives, that bitch just blew six of 'em getting too close to my special friend Standing Skull Man. Hey cat, go clean your ass next to one of the things I'm already bored with. This is new and exciting, and thus must be kept clean.
And now, the moment you've all been waiting for. Not since E.T. phoned home has a sight inflicted such painful, excruciating joy. Let's hear it for Standing Skull Man, alive and well, taller than me, composed mostly of styrofoam.
STANDING. SKULL. GUY.
Not that I have any particular reason to own a 6'5" grim reaper on a pole, I must admit that I somehow feel like a better person because of the purchase. Though many will take issue with the nearly Virgin Mary pose on display, the arms are somewhat negotiable and, fearing blasphemy, you can easily make Standing Skull Guy do part of the YMCA instead.
There are two connecting rods and a capture pole buried deep with the corpse's torso, and they're constructed about as well as anything else made in the fictional country of Eyrio, stamped on the bottom of the box as an added complaint shield. In other words, don't plan to transit the guy around after you build him, unless you're prepared for a Jenga tumble of the most extreme scale. Standing Skull Man doesn't weigh much, but he's bulky enough to hurt your head with enough velocity.
I asked Standing Skull Man to write a poem detailing his experiences in coming alive again. However reluctantly, he obliged:
