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Trick-or-treating may be a no-go for a lot of kids this year, thanks to, you know, the pandemic. Fortunately, people are still finding creative ways to get spooky this Halloween.

As one Twitter user noted, the Amityville Horror house at 112 Ocean Avenue, where a man shot and killed six members of his family in 1974, decorated its lawn with little shrouded skeletons—as if the historical occurrences weren’t scary enough.

But the mother of all Halloween decorations is the 12-foot skeleton from Home Depot, which you can call your own for $300—that’s $25 per foot of skeleton. Luckily, you don’t have to spend a dime to bring the big bundle o’ bones home; the 3D augmented reality feature in the Home Depot app allows you to visualize how Skelly would look in your space.

Everyone on the internet is obsessed with this skeleton. The reviews from people who actually bought it are glowing. Writes one reviewer, “Our town was obliterated by Hurricane Delta. There are power lines down, well-built heavy fences down, and even trees uprooted completely. Guess who survived the wind no issues?! Jimothy Bones, the 12 foot skeleton.” Writes another, “This skeleton is the only thing that has cured my depression.”

Same, HomeDepot.com reviewer Dave. Same.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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