3 Days of Halloween. Day 2: The Art of Trick-or-Treating

Trick-or-treating was really intense in our neighborhood. As kids, we would always have races to see who would be the first one to ring the doorbell. For some odd reason, it was awesome if you were the first one to ring the doorbell. Kathryn and I got really good at it. We would win a lot of the races, even if our legs were tied together. (We had the costume one year that required us to have 3 legs, and even then, we would still beat the other kids to the door.) Like I said, we were intense. Maybe that’s why we became runners. None of the other groups of kids would ever race to the doorbell though, and I think I know why. They had probably been terrorized by my Dad. One year, my dad dressed up like a scarecrow. A really good scarecrow. He wore a mask to cover his face, stuffed stuffing into his body suit to make him look lumpy, and stuck bits of straw around any openings in his costume. The he sat in a lawn chair outside our house, put the bucket of candy and a “take one” sign on his lap, then he went limp. It looked so good. Kids weren’t sure if he was real or not so they would approach very cautiously. I wish I had been there the time my Dad scared two boys. They were probably around 15 years old or so and they were dressed as jock football players. A perfect target. They were nervous to approach, but one of the boys finally got enough courage to go up and poke my dad. He didn’t move. The boy was relieved because he was assured that my Dad was just a stuffed scarecrow. The other boy then approached and they both started to take candy. That’s when my Dad sprung up shouting, “AAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH!” According to my Dad, those boys screamed like little girls all the way to the end of my driveway…. And I have a long driveway. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had peed their pants on their flight away.

Our group of kids got really good at trick-or-treating though. There’s an art to it. Over the years, you learn which houses to avoid and which houses to definitely go to, even of it is -30 degrees outside. We would always skip the houses that gave out the diet granola bars. (This was actually a “candy” one year). There was also one lady that only let you take 1 small piece of candy even though she had a giant bucket full. There aren’t that many kids in our neighborhood so what are you gonna do lady, eat it all by yourself? One year she had candy and balloons and she told us that we could pick one or the other. One little girl didn’t hear her so she took a piece of candy and a balloon. The lady was faster than lightening. She snatched the balloon back yelling, “Give me my balloon back!” And that was the last year we went to her house. But regardless of how many houses we would skip, we still got a shit ton of candy. Screw the little pumpkin buckets, we used pillowcases…. And we filled them up. The amount of candy we got could last us over a year. It was ridiculous. I’m surprised I don’t have more cavities. And the houses that just left the candy bucket out with a sign that read, “Take one”…. Well, we totally would take more than one. One time we got caught too. It was funny. We went up to this house that left their candy out with the sign, only they had really good candy. Like Nerds, and chocolate, and these marshmallow pumpkins, and candy eyeball lollipops. I mean cool stuff! So, when we went up to the house, we started to take one of each type of candy, giggling really loudly the whole time, which is probably why we got caught. The people were actually home, and they opened the door just as we were each taking a handful of candy and shoving it in our pillowcase. We just kind of stared at them for a while…. Then we ran. We booked it outta there. It probably made us look worse but whatever, we got awesome candy from them.

As time went on, we trick-or-treated less and less and started instead doing these court parties. Our whole court would get together and have a nighttime BBQ. We’d have games like bobbing for apples, and “eat the donut without using your hands”, and tag. They were actually really fun. It was a great time to socialize and have fun for Halloween. Maybe that why I love Halloween so much. I’ve always had a great time. It’s never really been a boring holiday for me. I do kinda miss those times now I’m at college, but I’ll make the best out of Halloween this year:)