HALLOWEEN

Yup, it is creeping up on me and will soon bite me on the ass! 
It is the time of year when we close down the summer and fall and enter the Holiday Season, right before winter! There are five seasons, as you know: Winter, spring, summer, fall, and holiday.

In front of our noses is Halloween the season that comes via witches, ghosts, and retail. It is funny how the holiday will start religious and end up in retail (See Halloween and Christmas)! Then there are the Government holidays of the 4th of July, all followed by retail support stores open until midnight. And who is the holiday you celebrate? Why the retail stores that drag their workers into work and you to shop creating stress for everyone who needs time off to celebrate, decorate, and even plan a get-together or two. Then how can we forget Memorial Day, it should be a solemn day of remembrance, and instead, we celebrate by shopping once again our capitalist culture taking over!

The latest thing is to decorate your home with a Halloween flag and go with inflatable lawn decorations. This also means you have to remember: get candy for the little monkeys that show up at the door, put up with the parents who interrupt your supper while they send their little brats to your door and stand to watch waiting for you to comment on how cute they are in their costumes. They usually stand in the street with strollers coming in packs, people who I’ve never seen before, all smoking (The very same parents who will restrict how much candy they will let their child eat) while the kid knocks on my door and just stands there looking at me. If the kids are driving to my door themselves, as long as they don’t park on my lawn I will give them a treat, if not I reach into my candy bowl and quickly shove it into their little bags and pretend I gave them something. What I don’t give I save for myself!

There are two days I pray for rain: the 4th of July and Halloween. The harder it rains the better, why, so I’m not annoyed by the constant din of fireworks or interruptions of knocking on my door! Yes, I’m getting old and mean.

When I was growing up in Brooklyn, we got together and didn’t ask for treats, we just offered tricks, usually ringing all the doorbells in the apartment house and then run like hell! Another bit of amusement was to travel to another neighborhood and throw socks filled with flour or chalk. We chose unsuspecting kids, and when his guard was down, we let him have it.

 Besides, my parents never followed my older sister (much older) Tessie or me around when we trick or treated in Brooklyn. My costume was homemade and I was usually armed with a chalky sock to fling against someone, especially if they wore black that day. When we yelled: “Trick or treat” we meant it. Not only did we ring doorbells we rang them all in a three-story apartment and they needed to answer and respond kindly, or else! The one thing my older sister (much older) Tessie and the older kids taught me was to never ring a doorbell of someone you knew because if they didn’t come across, and we tricked them, it would get back to our parents where the trick would be staying alive!

Now I reluctantly go to the door, and there stands about a 3” tall little monster.

 “Trick or treat, smell my feet!”

 The little monster is with his fellow monsters and they all have their bags opened for me to put in the candy.

 Reaching into my supply of peanut butter Reese’s, the monster takes one look and says: “Hey, I don’t like those!”

 My mind says: “Well you little bastard, why don’t you phone ahead so I can accommodate you!”

 TLW (The Little Woman) yells out, “Give him some M&Ms, and I heard what you just thought!

 I’ll give him something.

 I dump a packet of M&M’s into his sack and he checks to make sure he approves.

 Then there are the older kids. You know they are older because of two things. One, they don’t wear costumes, and B they park their cars in your driveway.

Costumes were the homemade kind, old clothing your father didn’t wear anymore but was saving for a second coming, and burnt cork, that marked our faces like we were bums. If we did knock on a door, it was someone we knew, and they always rewarded us with… fruit.

 So, last Halloween past, as the horde of kids came wave after wave, but my chocolate stash was being depleted, I had to act quick!

 “Toots! We’re running out of candy!”

 TLW: “No we’re not, I have more!”

 I search and find more Reese’s peanut butter, and I hate peanut butter. My new crusade is: ‘Save the chocolate!’ Let the little brats have the peanut butter, I’m running this chocolate into my studio while there is still some left and stash it.

 But this is the time of the beginning of the Presidential debates and the messages they put on the air. After they announce what they promise they will do, what terrible things their opponents have done and include their half-truths, misleading arguments and if you are watching closely their lies, they stamp it with their voice-over: “I’m a lying SOB and I approve this message!” Really! Now how will you get out of it???

One of my earliest recollections in life was a Halloween Party hosted by my family. I remember a witch coming and scaring me to death: as she seemed so eerie. I don’t think I was more than 4 years of age.

As I got older, my sister and I would have our party, bobbing for apples and my mouth was not yet large enough too capture an apple with my hands behind my back. She, of course, could grab two apples with hers. There were the candy corn and some kind of cupcakes or cakes decorated in black and orange icing. 

Soon I was out on the street as I aged, joining my sister and friends as we dressed as hobos, and maybe a mask if you were rich. I had on my dad’s tie, maybe his hat and jacket and we went from apartment house to apartment house, ringing doorbells and yelling: “Tick or treat!” Sometimes in unison, we would sing: “Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat!” Most times we were not greeted with candy but a hearty: “Get the hell outta here!” These people are the ones we loved because we would ring all the doorbells on the mailbox bank and run like hell. 

OK, maybe I’m a Halloween Scrooge. I hate Halloween because it is a nuisance to keep answering the door for some brats to get candy, they don’t do it as they used to, (no real good tricks) and I don’t have a costume!

Once, being it was a dreary day anyway, and I wasn’t in a mood to be bothered, I looked out the window about 3:30 pm and noticed there were no trick or treaters! What? On Halloween: NO trick or treaters? How bizarre is that?

Around 4:30 pm, I noticed a couple of adults milling about across the street and figured, here come the brats, and I have this delicious candy ready to dole out. Wait a minute I thought, why? Why should I give these little monkeys all my hard-earned candy, and I get none? Besides, their parents would pilfer their stash and help themselves to it, while I have no candy, having jumped up and down all afternoon. I had a plan that could explain why there were no brats all day. All my lights were out! My house looked dark and forbidding, that is why they never came; the house suggested that no one was home!

I immediately ducked down, crept back into my den and put on the closed caption with the sound off, this was a great plan, kiddies were all passing by my house. I was going to have enough Reese’s Pieces to last me until next October!


Then the unthinkable happened.

TLW (The Little Woman) came home!

“What, did you run out of candy? I put the lights on in the front of the house, it looked like no one was home, kids are all passing us by!”

“Oh! Are they?”

“Yes, I guess you didn’t realize that.”

“Well, actually it was part of my master plan, to disengage in such tomfoolery.”

All of a sudden there was the first of many knocks on my door, they were rushing up my driveway like rats scurrying from a sinking ship! 

Please tell me why parents have to bring these kids around when it is suppertime, interrupting my supper? 

Bah, humbug, or is that BOOOOOOOOO!

So I leave you with this: Have a happy holiday season as it starts soon, don’t get grouchy like me and if you are smart, don’t answer the door on Halloween, because the kids of today won’t do anything, they don’t want their store-bought costume to get dirty. This leaves you with more candy you can either eat or save for next year!