Friday, October 28, 2005

The Twelve Days of Halloween: Day 9

On the ninth day of Halloween, my true love gave to me:
Nine apples bobbing,
Eight misshapen Milk Duds,
Seven s'mores a-melting,
Six Resse's pieces,
Five CANDY CORNS!
Four gummi worms,
3 Musketeers,
Two deviled eggs,
And a Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Coffee

When I was a child, I always combined my birthday with a Halloween party. And, for several years in a row, an (indoor) pool party. I think this seasonally-inappropriate decision may have had something to do with the fact that my sister had a summer birthday and she got a pool party. So I wanted one too. Naturally, the Halloween/large-body-of-water combo called for...bobbing for apples. I had a natural edge as a kid, because I had an enormous overbite. And while the overbite didn't serve me terribly well when it came time for school pictures, I was an apple bobbing rock star.

I have since learned that apple bobbing was the ancient Celtic equivalent of catching the bouquet at a wedding. Apparently there are some very elaborate explanations involving pentagrams, fertility symbols, and harvest myths. Who knew that my buck teeth made me more marriageable?

Since we don't all have access to an enormous washtub and a dozen apples, why not bob for apples online?
* For a charming and simple version of the game, go here.
* For a much better animated and strictly adults-only iteration, go here.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've always thought bobbing for apples was goofy, but I absolutely love the Sat Eve Post cover you found. Did that come up searching Google images or did you already know about it?

Anonymous said...

Google images, baby! Though once I saw it, I remembered having seen it once before in a coffee-table book collection of Post covers.

Anonymous said...

This "adult" site to bob for apples is hysterically funny. I was not very successful at grabbing the apples.. but of course my overbite is not as good as yours was! You would have thought that my Transylvanian heritage would have helped me....