I don’t know if this happens where you live but in Texas we take holidays VERY seriously. The minute the calendar strikes October 1 out come all the Halloween lawn decorations...the now requisite giant spiders clinging to trees and windows white-sheet ghosts of all sizes hanging from every available branch and bush and plastic heads resting on the ground as if they’re poking up from the grave. Gone are the simple hand-carved pumpkins. That’s so yesterday. If you don’t have a standing mummy on your porch that slowly screams or mumbles as the terrified toddlers approach the front door you are pathetic. You are a party pooper a scrooge and should be punished. Remember it’s TRICK or treat!

Back in the days of our childhood if you didn’t give out any candy or if your candy wasn’t deemed worthy by the adolescent trick-or-treaters (and they have no business asking for candy at that age anyway)...the ‘trick’ might be to place a paper bag of dog poop on the porch light it on fire and ring the doorbell. They would be hiding in your bushes and when you came out and stomped on the bag to put out the fire well you can visualize the mess that would send them into fits of muffled laughter. The tricksters are a bit more sophisticated these days. If you piss them off by not giving them $20 a piece in lieu of candy they’ll drive by later in the night and throw a boulder through your car window. Wow! Times have changed.

SalGal had a budget of $4 to purchase our lawn decorations this year. You can’t buy shit for $4 these days so she came home with two miniscule plastic spiders requiring a magnifying glass to see at night a neon spider that glows in the dark (for about 20 seconds then shuts down) and a tin-foil witch 8-inches tall that she attached to our screen door. I fear that the trick-or-treaters of today will scoff at our meager attempts to scare them. I’ve parked my car in the neighbor’s garage in hopes that they won’t discover it until November 1. We’re going to take the risk of shutting off our lights after the wee ones have gotten their 2 Hershey’s Kisses (each)...come on...we’re not cheap). Then we’ll lie in wait with my 9mm Glauck for the adolescents who think they can punish us. It won’t be loaded but they won’t know that.

BOO!

KK

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I never liked Halloween because The Ancient One - then known as The Stunning One - was not great at costuming. While other mothers went all out with sewing Wonder Woman outfits and building papier mache Howdy Doody masks our mother was having a martini and dressing for a cocktail party. I always ended up being Tom Sawyer. I just put on some old jeans dotted freckles on my face and went running around the neighborhood barefooted with a big paper bag I found in the garage. Pretty lame but I did get the goods. People would ask “And who are you supposed to be?” I said “Tom Sawyer ma’am.” But I was thinking…duh.

See back in the fifties all of us ghosts and goblins just ran around willy-nilly like a pack of wild pigs. Parents rarely accompanied us on our quest so we got to reach our little hands into bowls of hard candies and Tootsie Rolls with nary a care for propriety manners or needles. These days the parents are always with the children and they are only allowed to take one piece of candy. Then they have to say a thank you as they saunter off with mom or dad two steps behind like some prison guard. That really sucks. I feel sorry for them. I take handfuls of candy and plunk the booty into their bright orange pumpkin-shaped receptacles and tell them if they take off running they can ditch their parents at the creek down the street. This does not go over well with most of the parents but there is nothing more fun for a kid than running around in the dark on a cool fall night. We did it and we’re still here. Running in packs….safety in numbers that’s the key to a successful Halloween experience.

If I got pissed off because of stingy candy-giving I would hide in the bushes and tear all the leaves off of their perfectly shaped topiary plant and then scatter the leaves on the front porch. That’ll show ‘em I would think and then next year they would certainly make sure their candy supply was more abundantly distributed and it would all be because of my attention to duty.

I wish I could get dressed up and go door-to-door and ask for candy. Trick or Treat!! I would be Tammy Fay Baker…or maybe Boy George. Wouldn’t that be great if grown-ups did that too? Only we would fill our pumpkin buckets with truffles and olives. I’m just sayin’.