I frigging love October! Halloween is easily the greatest holiday of the year. As a child, it meant free candy and getting to dress up as whatever I wanted. Now that I’m an adult, Halloween means Halloween parties with free booze and chicks dressing up as whatever they want. Usually they want to dress up as sluts. Once I even met one named Candy.

Halloween used to mean something. Now it’s slowly being clogged with the likes of Twilighters and Wiccans, people who wouldn’t know horror if it slithered out from under their beds and disemboweled them with an ice cream scoop. I swear, if I see one more emo kid with glitter on his face, I’m tearing out his throat in the name of justice. One of them actually apologized for being in my wife’s way at Barnes and Noble.

My god, people, don’t you get what’s happening? “Vampire” now means someone that glitters in the sunlight, falls in love with whiny teenage girls, and lives in the Pacific Northwest. “Witches” eat funny jellybeans and play Quidditch. What’s next? Werepoodles?

In an attempt to understand the pansification of Halloween, I turned the horrorscopes over to some of these so-called “horror genre” types this month. I had to spend three hours at The 13th Gate just to get over talking to them, so enjoy it.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): “The quickest way to gain favor with the goddess is to dance naked before her in the moonlight.” – Windshadow, 21, found barefoot on the parade grounds, did not help me see the future, but was still an enjoyable experience, aside from her obvious aversion to personal hygiene.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): “Don’t talk to me, weirdo!” – Name unknown, age unknown, was found huddled with a bunch of dangerously pale teenagers outside of Hot Topic, sharing a cigarette with six other kids, all wearing black pants that they apparently purchased at the big and tall store, despite the heaviest of them weighing in at 90 lbs sopping wet.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): “Blaargggthle thopth, ffmmmle loossethh qust frummeh.” – Anthnonny?, thickstheen?, was found in front of Body Images on Government getting yet another facial piercing.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): “I don’t know about yours, but my future better involve moving to Washington, going to prom, and becoming a vampire that drinks animal blood because I don’t want to hurt humans.” – Chrissy, 14, was found in the occult section of Books-a-Million. [Really, people? Really? This is what passes for vampires now? Really?]

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): “Let go of me! I’m warning you! Avada Kedavra! Avada Kedavra! Avada Ke–” (remainder muffled by water) – James, 22, called me a “Muggle” when I asked him for a horoscope, which forced me to place him in an adjacent pond to search for gillyweed.

PISCES (Feb. 19-Mar. 20): “First off, God is not magic and He doesn’t tell fortunes! Second off, you need a great deal of prayer, son!” – “Father Mike,” 46, is a visiting priest found outside of Our Lady of the Lake.

ARIES (Mar. 21-Apr. 19): “I can totally read your future; let me get my tarot cards. ’Kay, this one’s Death, but it’s upside down, so I guess you’re not dead, and this one is a guy with a bunch of sticks, so you like the woods, and this one is some cups. Wait; lemme look at my book real quick.” – April, 19, was found dressed like a gypsy in the quad at LSU.

TAURUS (Apr. 20-May 20):   “The future? There is no future. Life goes on in a dark, swirling void that descends into the sweet release of death.” – Terrence, 16, was seated in a booth at Waffle House at 4 a.m. on a Saturday, wearing all black, including eye make-up, stone sober.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): “I can read your tea leaves like in The Prisoner of Azkaban. Let me see your cup. Oh, wait; they’re all in a bag.” – Scott, 11, was at Starbucks with his mother, who left him alone by me for an unreasonable amount of time. [What the hell is a Bionicle, and how does this qualify as Legos?]

CANCER (June 21-July 22): “Your future is a cloudy one, day walker. Though clairvoyance is indeed one of the dark gifts bestowed upon me when I ‘became,’ it doesn’t always work on creatures of the light.” – “Altamont,” 250 (unconfirmed), found wearing a cravat and velvet overcoat outside of the Mall of Louisiana on a day when the high was in the 90s, took offense when I asked him if he was pissed that the Grateful Dead didn’t get to play after the guy got killed during the Stones’ set.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “For your fortune, you have to tell me your favorite number and your favorite color.” – Haleigh, 6, followed this by pulling a strange, folded-paper object out of her pocket and moving it about in her hands, right before (I’m pretty sure) she stole my soul and told me I was going to live in a mansion with a nurse and be a movie star.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “I can ask the spirits for a message about you, but I’m gonna need a live chicken and a bag of your toenail clippins.” – Wally, 56, asked me for change outside the Albertsons on College. He was also the only one of the yahoos I actually believed could communicate with “the other realm.”