Halloween is the only holiday that makes any sense to me.

If you dig trees or military service, why wait until Arbor Day or Veterans Day to celebrate? I don't get it. Holidays like Valentine's Day, Christmas and Earth Day preach values like affection, brotherhood and ecological consciousness, but if these are such important values, why not practice them all year?

Halloween, on the other hand, can only be one day a year. If you dress up like a ghost or a slutty vampire or a slutty cop or a slutty geologist every day, people will think you're weird (or at least, kind of slutty). If you go knock on every door in your neighborhood every day, people will think you're weird (unless you're a Jehovah's Witness). And as badly as I want to (and as often as I've tried), if you eat 16 pounds of Butterfingers and Tropical Starburst every day, in addition to people thinking you're weird, you'll probably die.

It's a day of overkill, of orgiastic, Dionysian celebration, and it can't take place more than once a year lest society crumble at its foundation.

And what better time of year to do it? Without the oasis of Halloween, this time of year would be a barren desert of chronic tedium. It's another month until Thanksgiving and it's been a full two months since Labor Day. The excitement of just starting school is long worn off, but the relief of being even almost done with school is still far away.

Without a holiday like Halloween, this would be an otherwise unbearable time of year. Halloween is a full bottle of anti-depression pills, channeled through fun-size candy bars. The dosage? Eat as much as you can, as fast as you can and don't share with anyone.

Honestly, I eat candy all year round, but with the exception of candy corn, nothing about Halloween candy is particularly unique. Candy companies know they don't have to do any real work to sell candy at the end of October. Other companies do stuff (I can't be the only one hoping for a return of Mountain Dew Pitch Black), but candy companies typically take some time off.

Again, Halloween proves to be the opposite of other holidays. Easter has its Cadbury Eggs, Valentine's Day its conversation hearts, Hannukah its gelt. Halloween doesn't have any of these, and it doesn't have any of the morals that these holidays preach, either.

Instead, it has ordinary, everyday candy, but it has all of it. Screw morals and specialization; I just want to eat as much candy as I can, and maybe dress up like a zombie. One day a year, I'm allowed to, and on this day, I am happiest.

Adam Clair is a junior majoring in journalism, a music reporter for the Daily Collegian and is dressing up as Jacques Cousteau's zombie for Halloween. His e-mail address is asc5014@psu.edu.