Me Aside And I Can't Break

Say, you're driving down the street in your swingin' YouMobile. You're fiddling with the radio. You're feeling pretty good. You're warbling, "Do you believe in live after love? after love? after love? I can feel something inside me say - WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?"

Brace yourselves, children.

This family in Madison, NJ loves Halloween. They decorate like mad. Unfortunately, they're not up on current events of the last 100 years. We'll let the Daily Record take it from here, because I couldn't do this justice without my own appellate division.

Public uproar that compared an image to a lynching has led a Madison family to remove a hanged dummy from its Halloween display.

Homeowners David and Cheryl Maines angrily denied the display, including a life-size figure with a featureless black head hanging from a noose, was racist. They had refused to remove the figure dressed in a navy blue shirt, blue jeans and sneakers earlier Monday.

"It's a Halloween decoration, that's all it is," said David Maines, who is Madison's superintendent of public works. "I'm at the end of my rope because of one lady ... a lady who is being a pain in the neck."

Flying Spaghetti Monster! Lynching jokes! Man, that's fresh comedy! What in glamorous tarnation is going on here?

Cheryl Maines said her family was being harassed by people like [Millie] Hazlewood and others who were taking pictures of their home.

"This has destroyed my son," Maines told Hazlewood, and the two other black residents, Nora Drewery and school board member George Martin, who also were present during Monday's exchange outside the house. "This is why the world has gone crazy, people take offense to everything."

Drewery, 62, a 35-year Madison resident, replied that no one was trying to hurt the Maines family.

"We're just requesting that you take this down," Drewery said.

That's when David Maines showed up at his home, got out of his truck and said:

"Ma'am, shut up. We are not racist."

Maines then abruptly walked away, got into his truck, and sped off.

Are we in a Dave Chappell sketch? Because it is genius.

David Maines said his life was being made a "living hell" and that his job was being jeopardized because of the incident. He said a town official asked him to remove the figure, but would not name the person.

He and his wife said that their son spent $5,000 on all the decorations and that taking down the one piece would "ruin the whole effect."

Also in their front yard are some plastic skeletons and a figure depicting Michael Myers, the character from the Halloween movies. Inside their home, in an enclosed porch, is a display including life-size figures of other movie characters such as Igor from Frankenstein, Jason from Friday the 13th and a mad scientist with beakers, skulls and rats on a table.

"It's like a fun house," Jennifer Maines said. "The kids love it."

Cheryl Maines said those who find it offensive are now harassing them. The Maines family called police Sunday afternoon when several people stood outside taking pictures of the display.

"I'm angry because this woman took something and blew it out of proportion," Cheryl Maines said of Hazlewood. "If you're offended, don't come by the house, there are other routes people can go."

Re-route traffic? Ruin the whole effect?

At first, I thought these people cannot be real - that the reporter was having a little fun at the expense of these wacky exterior desecrators. Well, of course they're real. White people just like them are everywhere. These four happen to be concentrated at one address, which is good news for us, if not for their neighbors.

Look, we all say stupid things. We do stupid shit. We fuck up, we apologize and hope we never do anything that blockheaded again until the next time we do something blockheaded. This is that, and then some. There's a little conversation you can hear on TV daily, if you're paying attention.

Person 1: You really hurt me.
Person 2: I didn't mean to hurt you. I would never hurt you.
Person 1: But...you really hurt me.
Person 2: But...I didn't mean to hurt you. I would never hurt you.

Person 1 is discussing events. Person 2 is discussing fantasies. They will go around this mulberry bush until Person 1 realizes no apology and no change in behavior are forthcoming. Person 2 will be forgiven in the next scene when he or she brings home a bowling trophy with a sheepish grin. Person 2 can't help it. Person 2 is a lovable blockhead. All horrifying accidental hilarity aside, it's time for the Maines family to wise the hell up.

It's 2007, and no matter what they intended to do, what they have actually done is offensive and not just to black people. It's offensive to all people - or it should be. The family's taken down the mannequin, so the show's over for the real dummies. They'll live to festoon again.

Will all their Christmases be white?

h/t: Wintle.