Other Awesome October Holidays (Because Halloween Shouldn't Get All the Credit)

October plays host to some of the greatest and most delicious holidays of the year. I don't know who decides any of this; maybe there's a committee somewhere that thought our lack of National Greasy Foods Day was one of the greatest oversights in history. Nonetheless, October's here, and so are all the yummy, dangerous, and cheese-related holidays that come with it.

October 1: Homemade Cookies Day. (Let's be serious. EVERY day is Homemade Cookies Day.)

October 2: Name Your Car Day. (Anecdote: in my friend group, you did not choose your car's name. The name was bestowed upon your car. Needless to say, there were disputes about the validity of names like "the Loser Cruiser" and "Poop McVolvo.")

October 3: Balloons Around the World Day. (On their website, when asked, "Why October 3rd?" they say, "No particular reason, but it's a great way to start to National Pizza Month." These people know the way to my heart.)

October 4: National Taco Day, World Animal Day. (Does this include all the animals that go into tacos?)

October 5: International World Teacher's Day, World Smile Day. (Make your teacher smile and you've celebrated two holidays in one! Or just draw one on their face.)

October 6: Mad Hatter Day, National Noodle Day. (Get a top hat and some penne and prepare to wreak havoc.)

October 7: Bathtub Day. (Celebrate with caution. Historically bathtubs have been the sites of both epiphanies and murder. Also, this is not to be confused with Bathtub Party Day, which is December 5th and sounds dangerous, or Read in the Bathtub Day, which is February 9th and sounds heavenly.)

October 8: Columbus Day, Canadian Thanksgiving, National Fluffernutter Day. (If your life has passed thus far without any really ecstatic fluffernutter consumption, you're doing it wrong.)

October 9: Leif Erikson Day, Moldy Cheese Day, Fire Prevention Day. (Vikings plus cheese equals fire?)

October 10: Tuxedo Day. (Here's a bunch of pictures of Joseph Gordon-Levitt rocking various tuxedos. You're welcome.)

October 11: Bring Your Teddy Bear to Work or School Day. (Side note: nobody seems to know what day this actually falls upon. The general consensus is mid-October, ish, so I say take your teddy bear to school whenever you damn well please.)

October 12: Moment of Frustration Day. (Channel the year's frustrations into this single glorious day of pillow-punching and therapeutic journaling.)

October 13: Yorkshire Pudding Day. (Cheerio! Did I do that right?)

October 14: International Dessert Day, Chocolate-Covered Insects Day. (Should these two fall on the same day? Discuss.)

October 15: Global Handwashing Day. (Think of all the wild times you could have with THIS.)

October 16: World Food Day. (Here, have a link.)

October 17: Big Yellow Hat Day. (Finally, the day has arrived wherein I can swagger proudly down the streets donning my Curious George hat and not be judged.)

October 18: Alaska Day, National Chocolate Cupcake Day. (Grab your favorite Alaskan and whip up some chocolate cupcakes. Or even your second-favorite Alaskan.)

October 20: Sweetest Day. (Only in some Midwestern states? Apparently? I don't know why this is so exclusive.)

October 21: Apple Day, Babbling Day. (My babbling is at its most incomprehensible when there are apples, so this works out perfectly.)

October 22: National Knee Day. (Do you spend enough time appreciating your knees? I didn't think so.)

October 23: National Boston Cream Pie Day. (There's a reason Boston Cream Pie gets its own day, and that's because eating it is a sensation some people associate with religious epiphany.)

October 24: United Nations Day, National Bologna Day. (Apparently United Nations Day didn't garner the right celebratory reaction, so they threw in a little something extra.)

October 25: National Denim Day, National Greasy Foods Day. (Ditto.)

October 26: National Pumpkin Day. (Did you know that the largest pumpkin ever recorded was a whopping 1,810 pounds? Now you do. And that guy probably didn't even use an umbrella-wand, HAGRID.)

October 27: Boxer Shorts Day, Swamp Buggy Race Day, Cranky Co-workers' Day. (This is the one day a year you can storm out of the office in your boxers on your way down to the swamp buggy races. Take advantage.)

October 28: National Chocolate Day. (Forget Chocolate DAY. I think we should do like the Chinese and have Year of the Chocolate.)

October 29: National Cat Day, National Oatmeal Day. (I dislike both cats and oatmeal, but have you ever Googled cats eating oatmeal? It's PRECIOUS.)

October 30: National Candy Corn Day. (Did you know there's also Bunny Corn for Easter and Cupid Corn for Valentine's Day? I can't figure out if that's brilliant or just plain wrong.)

October 31: HALLOWEEN! (C'mon, I had to.)

It's also...

Lupus Awareness Month, National Squirrel Awareness Month, LGBT History Month, National Pizza Month, Adopt-a-Shelter-Animal Month, and National Popcorn Popping Month. So try to smash those all together to create what could potentially be the strangest, most amazing party ever.

Movies You Really Shouldn't Watch with Your Parents

There are certain movies you should never watch with the people who made you. Now, sometimes there’s just a line or two in the entire movie that's uncomfortable, and this can be easily rectified with a well-timed snack or bathroom break. But sometimes the movie is simply doomed to be a big party of awkward. Not in and of itself—if you were with friends, this would be hilarious and barely worth noting. But with your parents, you’re squirming and mentally tabulating the number of times someone says the word "sex."

That being said, there are some basic categories that constitute an awkward cinematic viewing experience with the parental units, and they are as follows:

Too Much Sexy Time
Whether it’s a harmless innuendo or a full-blown steamy scene, there’s nothing like too much onscreen HND to make Family Movie Night unbearably awkward. Your parents are always going to see you as their kid, and there’s no way in hell your impressionable child eyes should be beholding things that are far above your maturity level. And there’s no reason you should be hearing, much less understanding, the inappropriate jokes that are flying fast and furious.

Movies to avoid: The Hangover 2, Showgirls, Black Swan, American Pie, Brokeback Mountain,The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Borat, Zack and Miri Make a Porno (as a general rule, you should probably avoid all movies with the word "porno" in the title).

Too Many F-BombsSome parents are cool about curse words. Some are less than cool. If you grew up in a household where swearing earned a time-out of the highest caliber, and was the rough equivalent of punching your sibling in the face, then every naughty word is going to be like a knife in your soul. This includes the frequency with which they are used and the context in which they are spoken. A casual I-just-stubbed-my-toe or I-really-wish-that-building-hadn’t-exploded swear word may not warrant a flinch, but a colorful string of elaborately woven curses will do the trick.

Movies to avoid: Tropic Thunder, Superbad, Knocked Up (anything by Judd Apatow is practically a guarantee), The Usual Suspects, South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut (I really can't stress this enough).

Too Much Violence/Gore (a.k.a. “the Ick Factor”)Sometimes a horror movie has so much gore that it’s hard to watch it yourself; no way are you going to bring your parents into the mix. Every time someone gets gruesomely axe-murdered, you just know they’ll be cringing and mentally wondering about your taste in movies and what kind of psychopath they have brewing here.

Movies to avoid: Battle Royale, Battle Royale 2 (probably... I haven't seen it yet, but nothing about the first one suggested to me that its sequel will err towards the romantic comedy genre), The Human Centipede, The Human Centipede 2 (ditto), American Psycho, Fatal Attraction, anything from the Saw franchise.

Movies That Somehow Incorporate All ThreeSometimes you’ll hit upon a movie that includes the full spectrum of sexy time, swearing, and gore in a trifecta of discomfort, and if your parents have camped out on the sofa with a bucket of popcorn, it’s going to be a harrowing journey.

Movies to avoid: Most of the movies on this list overlap categories in some form or fashion. The writers are thinking, “If we’re going to make this weird for kids to watch with their parents, there’s no point in making it anything less than a FULL-BLOWN AWKWARD NIGHTMARE THAT WILL DEFINE THIS RELATIONSHIP FOR YEARS TO COME."

12 Weird Facts About Dreams

Dreams have been fascinating people since the dawn of time. Ancient Egyptians thought they were the gods sending messages. Sigmund Freud believed they were the window to every forbidden desire your subconscious has ever repressed. Whatever they are, we all have them (that's scientific fact), so here's a helping of dream facts you may or may not find interesting:

1. We forget 90% of our dreams. So for all that bizarro crap your brain churns out every night, leaving you to wake up and wonder, bewildered, "What was that?"... well, there's plenty more where that came from.

2. Animals dream too. Anyone who's ever seen their dog yelp and twitch while they're sleeping (or has at least seen the YouTube videos) knows this to be true.

3. Our muscles are paralyzed while we're dreaming.

4. Dreams have been thought by some to be precognitive, and not just back in ancient times. Abraham Lincoln purportedly "foresaw" his own assassination in a dream, and Mark Twain dreamed of his brother's riverboat accident before it ever happened... right down to minute details like the coffin and its placement in his sister's living room.

5. Life-altering ideas and inventions have been conceived from dreams. Elias Howe, Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, Stephen King, and Paul McCartney have attributed their sewing machines, classic novels, and famous Grammy-winning pop songs to dreams.

6. Some say dreams can be symbolic. This explains the dream where Joseph Gordon-Levitt took me to prom. Prom clearly symbolizes marriage forever, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt clearly symbolizes himself. (Is it too much to hope that that's precognitive?)

7. Birth order tends to sway dream aggression. First-born females act more aggressively in their slumber fantasies, certain as they are that they are ENTITLED TO ALL THAT POWER AND INFLUENCE. (Yes, I'm a first-born child.)

8. "Dreamed" and "dreamt" are both acceptable. Not about dreams, per se, but it needed to be said.

9. Stages of sleep are responsible for whether your dream is a sloppy mess of indistinct characters and limited focus, or a complex plot-driven masterpiece with themes and motifs. Stage 1 and 2 sleep errs toward the former, and REM sleep toward the latter.

10. "Lucid dreaming" occurs when the person becomes aware that they are dreaming, thereby giving them control over their dream. So theoretically you could fly or do perfect cartwheels or eat twice your weight in pie, or turn your nighttime adventures into your own personal Hogwarts.

11. We only dream about faces we've seen. There are no strangers in dreamworld. So it follows logically that the sombrero-wearing mystery man that tried to run me over with a motorcycle in my dream last night... I've seen him before. I just don't know where.

12. Scientists are working on being able to record dreams, which is equal parts awesome and horrifying if you've had as many naked-in-a-public-place dreams as I have.

The 5 Stages of Having Nothing to Wear

What to wear: it’s a dilemma that’s been aroundforever. Cavemen and cavewomen stressed over which animal hide made them appear most threatening to wooly mammoths. Ladyfolk in the Victorian era mulled over this or that corset, while the dudes wondered whether those breeches made their calves look sexy. For thousands of years, people have looked upon a well-stocked closet and decided they had nothing to wear;  it’s a predictable pattern that goes a little something like this:

1. The Initial, Optimistic Stages. The day looks bright and promising from where you’re standing. The Perfect Outfit is in this closet somewhere, and you will find it, and it will be everything you ever dreamed it would be, and also for no discernible reason your hair will look fantastic.

2. The “Making Piles” Stage. So far you’ve got a “no” pile, which is massive and demoralizing; a “maybe” pile, which is ambiguous and confusing; and a sad, empty space over in the corner that would theoretically be the “yes” pile if only all your clothes didn’t kind of suck.

3. The “Slow Descent into Insanity” Stage. This is turning into a debacle of nightmarishproportions. Someone slipped into your room last night and swiped all the cute, socially acceptable clothes, leaving behind the clothing choices of a social suicide mission. Nothing matches. Everything is falling apart. I mean, GOD. What is with those purple PANTS? You’ve wornthese things—in PUBLIC—and nary a person even bothered to mention that they make your butt look like two plums. Some friends you have. You try on everything in the "maybe" pile, and then everything in the "no" pile for good measure. And then... something inside you snaps.

4. The “Full-Blown Existential Crisis” Stage can be summarily described as “BBLLLEEEERGGHHHHH.” You’re disheveled. The clock is winding down. It’s the eleventh hour, and the best you’ve come up with is a pair of plum-butt jeans and a T-shirt that says “HOT STUFF.” Things are looking grim, if not downright hopeless. It’s at this point that you drop to your knees amid the stacks of clothes, raise your fists to the heavens, and let loose with a desperate, guttural scream of “WHY DO BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE?”

5. The Final Stages of Defeat. In rare cases, you will look up and see the Perfect Outfit being shrouded with beams of light as a chorus of angels sings “Hallelujah!” In all likelihood, however, you’ll throw on whatever crap outfit is nearest/looks the least revolting, and you’ll leave the house feeling dissatisfied. It happened to the cavemen and the Victorian ladies, and it’ll happen to you too. Just remember that you probably don’t look quite as horrid as you think you do. As long as you’re not wearing, like, one croc and one Ugg apiece after having given up completely and just deciding to turn your shower curtain into a dress, you’re probably okay. Sometimes all a closet needs to look better is a fresh perspective when you’re not in a time crunch. (Either that or a major shopping overhaul and a bucket of ice cream.)

How to Be the Worst Babysitter Ever

It’s not all that hard to be a halfway capable babysitter. What takes real skill is achieving the kind of blatant incompetence with children that most people associate with convicted criminals or Phil from The Hangover. If that’s your noble goal, this guide is all you:

1. Leave the kids to their own devices. They’re probably fine. This goes double if what they’re doing involves fire or weapons or trampolines, or flaming weapons on a trampoline of fire, because too much supervision for kids is just stifling their creative juices.

2. Instruct them in the fine art of making prank calls, especially to the numbers on the “In Case of Emergency” list.

3. Throw those pesky “house rules” right out the window. It’s never too early to teach them that rules are meant to broken, and that rules are just like laws, and that a life of crime is its own reward. It’s also never too early to start planning bank heists.

4. Bedtime? Forget about it. They’ll tell you when they’re tired.

5. Let them eat whatever they want, particularly the things their mom told you not to let them have, citing “the brevity of life and the inevitability of death” as justification.

6. Eschew movies like Finding Nemo, which they’ve probably seen a million times, in favor of something they’ve never seen before, like The Exorcist.

7. Baking cookies is fun, but it’s even more fun to eat them all yourself and make the kids watch.

8. There’s nothing wrong with having a few friends over, especially rowdy friends that like to swear a lot and tell raunchy jokes.

9. See what kind of high-stakes, winner-take-all game you can come up with that incorporates stairs, electrical outlets, and cleaning supplies.

10. Don’t read them a story if requested. Make them read you a story, with three-dimensional characters and shocking plot twists.

11. Help them with their homework, by which of course I mean tape their homework to the wall and make it into an elaborate game of darts.

12. When you get them into bed, mention offhandedly that there’s a vicious monster under the bed summoned straight from the inner circles of hell that won’t hesitate to devour them if they so much as think about getting up in the night. Slowly close the door and whisper, “Good night… and good luck.”

13. Don’t clean up. It’s not like it’s your house.

14. Give them a scavenger hunt, where the items on the list are their parents’ valuables and the place to put them is in your backpack.

15. When the parents pay you, sigh and say things like, “I guess the babysitting business isn’t as lucrative as it used to be…” and “I feel like I should get hazard pay. Your kid has the dead, soulless gaze of a psychopath” and “The couch was on fire when I got here” and “Just so you know, I lost the dog.”

5 Examples of Animals Being Awesome

Animals are constantly finding new ways of being amazing. Every time you think they can't get any cuter or more intelligent, you'll see a picture of a baby otter or hear about a pig rescuing its owner. And then you'll hear about stuff like this, and it'll ratchet up the animal awesomeness meter by about 5,000%:

Animal: Dogs
What they’re doing: Using complex Russian subway systems to get to where they need to go.No joke—these strays dogs are using the Metro in Moscow to get downtown. They even obey traffic lights. As if that weren't enough, the strays have also come up with strategic ways of scavenging for food once they've finished their commute into the city. Sometimes they’ll send forward the cutest member of their pack to beg, knowing they'll be more successful than their more mangy-looking fellows. Other times they’ll bark loudly right behind someone holding a snack. The person, shocked, will drop said snack, and the strays will converge on it and run. Considering most of the dogs in my neighborhood have mastered the tasteful art of eating feces, I find this seriously impressive.

Animal: Parrots
What they’re doing: Escaping from captivity and then teaching their wild counterparts how to speak English... including profanity. That’s right—in a few hundred years, it might not even be considered weird if you go on a tour in Australia and hear a parrot scream “ASSHAT!”

Animals: Splish and Splash the goldfish
What they're doing: Defying the odds by LIVING FOREVER, at least by goldfish standards. Let's bear in mind that most carnival fish—which is exactly what Splish and Splash are—live for, like, a day and a half. Then children learn that life is cruel, fleeting, and usually ends in a toilet bowl. But these two will be turning 35 years old this November. They've outlived four pet cats, and the kids that originally won them have actually moved out and started families of their own.

Animal: An orangutan named Ujian
What he’s doing: Recording a CD! Ujian, an orangutan in Germany, taught himself how to whistle. Bear in mind that only 2 out of 3 humans can whistle, so for every group of three there’s one poor sucker who was bested by a German ape in captivity. Having taught himself how to whistle in an effort to snag the attention of the guy bringing him food, Ujian has now succeeded in providing a little backup whistling on his CD "Ich Bin Ujian" ("I am Ujian").

Animal: Cats called MUNCHKINS
What they’re doing: Um, EXISTING. Have you seen these things? They’re like the cat version of wiener dogs, with their short legs and irrefutable cuteness. Apparently they’re controversial, too; when Munchkins were recognized as a cat breed, some protested because they feared Munchkins would develop spinal and joint problems due to their shorter stature, and that people were encouraging a “genetic disease” by making it an official breed. However, it turns out Munchkinsare the result of a naturally occurring genetic mutation and the fact that they’re a little low to the ground doesn't seem to be interfering with their health, so they're able to continue existing adorably. I'm not even a cat person (and also I’m very allergic), and I would sell my own arm to have one.