Halloween is fun. That’s my stance. Any holiday that features free candy must be empirically good. In order to experience Halloween successfully, you need to have a good costume (unlike my roommate Mike, who wore a Santa hat and a t-shirt with the word “Costume” written on it to our party last year). These days, my main criteria for a costume is that it can’t involve a mask, or anything else that might prevent me from drinking beer. Some people take themselves too seriously to wear costumes to a party. These “serious” people probably want to read a column about the sniper in Washington D.C., but the only thing I want to talk about is how many people will “go there” and dress up in sniper outfits on October 31 (as a side note, however, what are the chances that, when this sniper is caught, he/she will say that he/she got the idea from watching The Jerk?). Adult Halloween parties, inappropriate costumes or not, can’t hold a candle to the free candy involved in the trick-or-treating of my youth.
I suspect that most kids have horror stories about the costumes of their childhood. One year, when I was about 10, my otherwise sane mother made me dress up as a GIRL to go trick-or-treating. I fought and fought with her about it, but she thought it was a wonderful idea (I remember how tickled she was when she saw me decked out in full girl regalia) and sent me out onto the street wearing a dress and makeup, with a red pocketbook to hold the candy. The entire night can be described as one long crying and screaming fit, and produced the lowest candy yield of my entire trick-or-treating career. My neighbors opened their doors, expecting cute little goblins and witches, only to see a sobbing miniature drag queen on their doorstep. Thankfully, this incident occurred before my parents bought a video camera and began taping everything they do (True story: The first time the Megger met my father, he was holding a video camera. He continued to roll tape while he shook her hand from behind the camera). Note to my college friends: NO, this story does not “explain a lot”.
My mother was also a strict enforcer of the “Winter coat over the costume” rule. My point was that the entire mystique of Batman, dark yet cool crime fighter, was destroyed when Batman was wearing a parka. Her counterpoint was something about her being my mother and I had better do what she said and blah, blah, blah. So, every year I would put on those uncomfortable masks, the ones with the eye and mouth holes that didn’t line up and the elastic that cut holes in the place where my ears meet my skull, and go out into the neighborhood dressed as Cold Weather Batman.
The older kids in the neighborhood also singled out Cold Weather Batman for special attention. None of my friends wore jackets over their costumes (at last check, they were all alive and without pneumonia), so when an older kid decided that it was time to try to rip off someone’s bag of candy, which of the Super Friends do you think he chose? For the record, he DID NOT get my candy (Batman had a strong grip), and the coat provided good protection from his punches. Justice prevailed, despite the fact that there were none of those balloons with the word “BLAM!” in them every time a punch was thrown (mostly by him), nor was there any cool “Batman is getting beat up” theme music.
The bully who tried to steal my candy was one of those kids who tend to show up on the doorstep late, asking for candy without having bothered with a costume. These kids are usually old enough to shave, and should be beaten with a rubber hose for infringing upon a tradition that should remain “kids-only”, but most people just keep their mouths shut and hand over the candy, realizing that a failure to do so could have a direct effect upon their property values. These bullies usually grow up to star on TV shows like Cops. I haven’t paid attention to what happened to the bully who tried to steal my candy but I hope that he is currently being traded as currency in a prison somewhere (line stolen from My Cousin Vinny).
My mother wasn’t always unreasonable about my costumes. One year she allowed me to dress up in my father’s blue Air Force uniform and hat with an old pipe (unlit) in my mouth. Some picture of Douglas MacArthur had given me the idea that any proper military officer wouldn’t dare to venture out in public without a pipe hanging from his lip. The costume was great until I got sent home by some kid in a Harry Truman costume (Ok, not really). Seriously, though, I walked all over town while sucking on that unlit pipe, and by the time I got home I wasn’t feeling very well. My hard-earned candy was left unguarded against the attacks of my older siblings while I spent the remainder of the night and most of the next day barking out orders to the commode. By the time I was ready to eat my candy, there were only empty wrappers left in the bag and to this day, whenever I get a sour stomach, I taste pipe.
My friend Dan insists that once every five years it’s important to give out full blown candy bars on Halloween, rather than the mini-sized ones. He says that it’s worth the investment because it’s the easiest way to curry favor with the local kid populace, and your house will be protected from egging and general mischief.
There was one family in my town that always gave out full blown candy bars, and I still remember them with fondness. There were other families in town that were viewed a bit less favorably. These families would have been better off if they had just left their porch light off, rather than handing out any of the following: Bags of popcorn, apples (caramel and otherwise), Smarties, Swedish fish and other cheapo candy, bags of pennies (which could break windows if thrown at high velocity), Charleston Chews (Nasty, even frozen), Necco Wafers, bags of mixed nuts, anything malted, and worst of all, those chocolate coins wrapped in foil that taste more like the foil than the chocolate.
It’s fairly obvious that I took my Halloween candy pretty seriously. I never personally took any action against the houses that gave away lousy candy (why do that, when you can be home EATING candy?), but I had some friends who seemed to take the whole thing rather personally. Besides the fact that I am a generally peaceful person, I always figured that the people who gave away the lousy candy would be punished by the fact that they would have lousy leftover candy. This ties in with my theory that leftover candy is the only reason why otherwise reasonable adults would give away perfectly good candy to some little cretin with a mask and a winter coat.
