Halloween and I have never had a particularly strong bond. I don’t remember exactly when I stopped trick-or-treating, except that trick-or-treating made a brief resurgence when I became one of those high school punks who starts doing it again. Even then, I remember that we hadn’t put much thought into our costumes [I think I just wore my school clothes, which included a necktie, and declared myself a businessman. A friend, as I recall, would bring a wig with him because with surprisingly little effort, he could make himself look like the Church Lady].
Once I struck out on my own, people would invite me to a Halloween party and demand to know how I would dress up.
I would always say something non-committal, like, “I don’t know, I don’t really get dressed up for Halloween.”
Meanwhile, I’d be thinking, “My life is awesome. Why would I want to pretend to be someone else? You should be dressing up like me.”
I also never handed out candy because kids don’t come to the door of your apartment. That suited me fine. As a single, adult male, society spends 364 days a year telling me it’s wrong to approach children with candy. I can’t just flip that switch off for one night.
This year, though, has been a Halloween of transition. For instance, I’ve always prided myself on having a perfectly reasonable outlook toward clowns. Then this year’s installment of American Horror Story came on television and I can’t sleep unless I know my personal collection of bowling pins is safely under lock and key.
This was also my first Halloween as a homeowner.
Knowing that the little ragamuffins of Fairmount would be swarming the neighborhood, I stocked up on candy ahead of time. I was sure to select an impressive array of candy, too, the kind I’d like to have received. I’m talking Snickers and Kit-Kat and even Skittles, you know, to mix some fruit in there. I may not remember much about Halloween, but I do remember resenting the houses that thought Smarties could even come close to a Milky Way.
And so came Halloween evening. I started hearing kids laughing as they made their way into the street.
“No worry,” I reassured myself. “You’re prepared for even the most discriminating 10 year old in a CHiPs costume. I’m sure kids are still wearing CHiPs costumes.”
But then the kids didn’t come to my house. I looked out the window. They were bypassing the Scaia house! They also, I noticed, were bypassing the house of the neighbor who recently moved in.
I tried to reassure myself that these particular kids were just going to the houses of people they knew. Still, I wanted to go outside brandishing a rake.
“Excuse me,” I’d say. “I’m very aware that you’re not stopping at my house, and I am not pleased. That’s a form of discrimination!”
Eventually, though, kids started coming to the door, and my plan to win over the ragamuffins went into effect: I’d let the kids pick out their own candy.
Everything was going great. Then a kid asked if he could have two things.
“Sure,” I said.
“No, just one,” an exhausted looking parent called out. “You can have one thing.”
This was, in retrospect, probably a clear example of my lack of experience with kids. I had no concern for the sugar-fueled mayhem that parent was going to face later that night.
Still, though, this Halloween was deemed successful by a child who, after leaving my house, passed another group of kids on the sidewalk. They exchanged information about where to stop, and kid number one was heard by this reporter to remark, “That house is cool.”
My house is cool.
An aside: Didn’t you used to get two Kit-Kats in a package? Between cutting the Kit-Kat output and student loans, I think we’re doing a horrible job setting up the younger generation to build wealth.
