The Trash Pack!

Curious? I am, too. But before that, this:

Halloween festivities are going well. I've yet to scoop pumpkin innards or secretly watch "The Craft" when no one else was looking, but the season has offered up plenty of pleasant surprises. Mainly, the thing above.

Secondly, the Halloween show is fast approaching and I'm down to the wire with everything I need to do and get done. With shows, I throw everything aside and only concentrate on the task at hand, and since this show is a really big show, I've been too nervous and preoccupied to truly treat the way this holiday should be treated. We're running out of days, people! I need to watch more horror films. I have to eventually leave the house to buy a latex mask that mats down my hair and makes my face awkwardly wet!

But alas, time is not on my side. All hope has run dry. Or at least that's what I thought. See: thing above.

Introducing The Trash Pack, an assemblage of dirty critters hibernating in your local trash bins, ready to jump out do critter things. Twelve distasteful miscreants to collect, trade and use as legal currency in My Perfect Future.

"The Gross Gang in Your Garbage" is such a great tag line, too. Who wouldn't want to make friends with an amorphous, indescribable blob? Or a dead rat?

Essentially, these acorn-sized pencil toppers are nothing new or too inventive. In fact, a few months ago I mentioned Squinkies, an almost exact mirror image of what we have today. Squinkies, though, are more family-friendly, with dinosaurs and Captain America's and cute puppies. The Trash Pack, on the other hand, are rotted pigs and vomit.

Each "Trashie" is conceived by the love-combination of sinister germs and leftover pizza boxes in a dirty trash can, and it's your job to help birth it into this world. I kind of just made that up.

Anyway, you get the point, right? Bunch of little nasty animals/bugs/goo that inhabit an army of old-school trash cans, and it's your job to break 'em free and let them loose.

Basically, kids love this junk. Basically, I love this junk.

The back of the package is great, because each Trashie is individually named, adding to the obsession. These aren't just dumpster freaks, these are your FUTURE FRIENDS.

Unfortunately, there's, like, a lot of them. Over a hundred, in fact. It bothers me that I won't be able to own them all, but it also boggles the mind as to what I would even do with them. Computer desk is cluttered, Castle Greyskull is occupied by WWF heroes and my mouth is already full of Tropical Starburst.

Included is a manual/instructions on how to play various games with your Trash Pack. Nearly all the games are different variations on throwing your trash-pals into the trash can, but they still went down Route Obvious and included a game called "Throw it in the Trash Can."

I'm not sure I'd ever use this guide, but I still like the small notion of actually meeting someone to stack electric-green, toy trash cans with. Would they be cool? Or a total fucking nutjob? The possibilities and scenarios relaying through my head actually sends chills up my spine.

So, let's tear open the lids and have at it!

Ahh!

In no particular order, there they stand. The colors are astounding, and probably one of the main reasons why I really, really like this. If I was smart, I'd pass this off as a hip, independent art piece, but no one would believe I even knew what an "independent art piece" was.

I love every single one with all of my heart...but that pig, man. Top three, for sure. He looks equally wired and drunk, spilt bile covering his large, bloated stomach. He's either stoned out of his mind or staring at that purple thing on his head. Which looks to be nothing short of a purple banana peel. Why not?

And, of course, that thing on the left deserves a quick mention. More puffed out eyes, more vomit floweth. The theme is obvious, but obviously, I like the theme. There's something so very precious found in spew.

Oh, and I really like the red rat with, of course, the toxic slime-puke. Honestly, I really only like the rat because he was on the front package, cheery and cherry. It's as if he was the first one to welcome me to the shit-filled world of Trash Pack and it's inhabitants within. And because he's the color of Twizzlers FINE YOU GOT ME.

Original Rat was blue, and the one I'm stuck with is red. I've already accepted this fate (the color red is preferred, really) but I've also accepted that I won't get a good night's sleep tonight because of it. Consistency issues, I guess.

You also get a big trash can, which initially came filled with the other secret seven Trashies, but you can store all twelve of them in there for safe keeping and to hide from your girlfriend. But I guess at that point you're better off throwing the entire thing in the actual trash. There's poetry somewhere in what I've just said.

Empty:

Sad. Depleted. Desolate. Completely barren and altogether lost. The image above puts a hole in my heart. Full:

Abundant. Jammed. Crowded and stocked. All is aligned with the universe.

All is aligned with Halloween!