Scraps of my Life

Happy Halloween!!!!

This year, I stayed home and manned the door while David and Daddy did the door-to-door candy begging routine.  Brian had stayed home the last 3 years while I walked David around with some “partners in crime”.

The first Trick-or-Treaters we got were really small neighborhood kids.  You know, the ones that are so small that Mom and/or Dad have to practically push the kid up to the door, and they are so shy/scared that there isn’t anyway in Hell that they will say ANYTHING, let alone “trick-or-treat”.  These are the kids who, as I said, are very young, have a short attention span, and usually are in bed before 8pm.  Gotta get the candy solicitation over with early so they can get to bed before the sugar crash hits.

Then we get the wave of school age kids.  These kids are already full of candy and are at a dead run between houses so they can get as many houses and as much candy in as possible.  There is much sugar re-fueling happening on the street, hence all the candy wrappers in the gutter!  The parents that accompany these children are the ones that stay on the street and just watch the kid go up to the door and collect the candy, then as the kids take off for the next house the parent is yelling for them to slow down so the parent can catch up.  If there are siblings there is much yelling and crying about whose turn it is to ring the doorbell.

The third wave of T-o-T-ers are those from other neighborhoods.  These are the families crammed into minivans that slowly follow the the kids that are running from house to house.  Sugar is an absolute necessity for these folks, otherwise the kids wouldn’t move fast enough to keep a traffic jam from occuring.  Traffic jams on small residential streets are murder to get moving again, especially when there is a lot of juvenile foot-traffic involved.

What absolutely “Frosts my Cookies” at Halloween is the high school aged trick or treater.  It’s not the age that bother’s me…it’s the attitude.  They come up to my door, with an attitude, won’t say “trick or treat” (I guess it’s beneath them – but it is OK to go door-to-door begging for candy?), and most importantly…WITH NO COSTUME!  My attitude then becomes…and I’ve said this to many a teenaged trick-or-treater, “If you don’t want to put forth the effort to dress up in a costume, then I don’t want to put forth the effort to give you any candy…buh-bye!”.  You’d think that my comment would guarantee me some sort of “trick” to be played on me…so far I’ve slid by unscathed.  I think it’s because these non-costumers are usually with other, “peers” whom have actually put forth some kind of costume effort and been rewarded.  All the teens and parents who showed up at my door today, with some sort of candy storage unit, had costumes on!  Kind of makes me wonder if my reputation is preceeding me…at least on Halloween???? Nahhhh!!!!

Filed under: Holidays, Observations Tagged: | halloween