“They weeble and they wobble but they won’t fall down.”

Festival of Fear week always makes me feel like a Weeble – and not just when I’m smashed drunk at one of the parties, swaying back and forth in boozy solidarity with one of the bottom-heavy plastic eggs. Imagine being pushed, pulled and scrambling in every direction between putting together the massive Halloween issue, getting prepared for the Festival itself, fielding emails and phone calls about the FoF, making arrangements for friends coming in for the weekend, on top of the usual life stuff and you’ll get an idea of the general state of affairs at the moment. Right now my desk looks like it ate a dozen other desks, got sick and barfed on itself. My computer monitor is starting to resemble a square peacock it’s got so many sticky notes tacked to it. And I’ve spent enough time in this office chair that I suspect I may have forgotten how to walk, which is good, because if I fall on the ground and knock myself out, I might actually catch some sleep. Mmmm…coma break…
Of course, it’s all worth it. Every year we say that we can’t believe the Festival of Fear is already here again, and every year we bemoan how quickly it passes – a blur of black T-shirts, crimson conversations and dull green hangovers. Ply us with parties, plow us down with fun and we’ll come back for more.
In one of my earliest memories I found a Weeble – a little kid with brown hair, a white shirt and slingshot in his back pocket – on the sidewalk outside my grandma’s house. I was fascinated with it and would roll it around in my hand, watching it bob and rise. It was the perfect size for squeezing in a small fist (and, really, also perfectly suited for plugging a child’s windpipe – gotta love those dangerous 1970s toys). Later, I realized it was also good for throwing at younger brothers – ha!
Somehow, despite a childhood of lost Hot Wheels cars, mutilated G.I. Joe figures and several moves, I hung on to that Weeble, which was the one and only Weeble I ever owned (although I really wish I had the awesome haunted house in the above commercial).
Whoever lost it, I thank you, because I learned that, no matter what, you gotta get back up and keep going – with your head held high. Kick your own ass, really. Gonna do that this weekend, panels, crowds of people and parties be damned.
Some people say, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” but if you’re undead, even that doesn’t apply, right?
Fuckin’ Weeblecore, baby.