about halloween

Try as I might, I cannot remember one single Halloween costume I've worn in my life. Unless you count the shirt I wore this year that is covered with black skulls with crossbones and little red hearts (comment at the Halloween Eve party: Mama Wilde, that shirt is so cool. It's like poison...but you've gotta love it. such clever kids!)

So, as I was saying. I don't remember any costumes except for the year that my older brother who was probably around 10 was a mummy. My mom wrapped him in strips of white sheet and pinned it all together with safety pins. It was a fine costume until he had to use the bathroom.

The only other thing I remember about Halloween from my childhood is the timewhen I was maybe six and my younger brother was probably 3 or so. The day after Halloween, I got this great idea that since we'd had such fun trick or treating the night before, why not do it again? I pretended to be the mom and dressed up my brother as a little girl. I don't remember exactly what I clothed him in except for my flowered mint green and ivory apron that I tied around his waist. I also tied a scarf around his head so you couldn't tell he had a buzz haircut.

We went to the next door neighbor's house, which is when I realized we didn't have a pillowcase to hold our stash. But quick thinker that I was, we decided we'd just eat the candy before we went to the next house.

We knocked on the door and when the neighbor answered, we hollered, "TRICK OR TREAT!" The neighbor lady, Lila, smiled and commented on the cute little girl I was with, and then, glory be, she gave us each a piece of candy. We said thank you and wished her a happy Halloween and skipped off the porch and down the driveway.

Before we went any farther, we (and by we, I mean I) decided we needed a container to hold our treats, so we headed back to our house where I located a little cloth bag with a drawstring that I kept my doll clothes in. We dumped out the doll clothes and headed back out of the house.

We walked down the sidewalk to the next house, knocked on the door and greeted the neighbor kids who lived there with a loud TRICK OR TREAT! The girl, Leslie, who was three years older than I, stared at us and said, "It isn't Halloween today." And then she shut the door.

We were stunned, but not enough to slow us down. We went to the next house. That neighbor lady said she thought her candy was all gone, but she told us to wait a minute and she came back with two boxes of raisins.

The next neighbor gave us candy. As did the next and the next and the next. We went all the way down the street and rounded the corner, not stopping at the corner house because those people had a big, black dog named Tarzan who lived inside of their fenced front yard. Tarzan loved to chase kids all the way along the fenceline of their yard and we'd heard he had rabies, so there was no way we were going in that yard. We also skipped the next house and then crossed the street to my Gramma's house.

Baum Baum (my dad's mom) was a sweet, sweet little lady who had many, many grandchildren and great grandchildren and every one of us thought we were her favorite. When we knocked on her front door and hollered TRICK OR TREAT, she opened the door and seeing us, exclaimed, "Why look at that cute little girl and her big sister!" Then she invited us in and gave us both a handful of candy for our bag.

We told Baum Baum that we couldn't stay long and she said she understood, and then we headed back to our street to hit the houses on the other side of our street. I don't think we even got to the first house before our mom came tearing up the street. I suspect that Baum Baum ratted us out. Even though I was only six, I quickly realized somebody had done something very bad. I don't remember exactly what she said, but the message was clear--Trick or treating was a once a year deal, what we had done was almost like stealing, and we were now going to take back everything we'd hauled in--just like the day she made me take back the orange slice candy I took from Sharp's grocery store before I understood that just because candy was on a shelf you could reach did not mean you could simply take what you wanted without paying for it.

Talk about a kill joy. Let me say that it was no where near as much fun returning the candy as it was getting the candy. Several of the neighbors tried to get us to keep the candy, but we knew that would never fly. We insisted we could not keep it and we apologized for taking it in the first place.

It had seemed like such a good idea. And while some part of me seemed to realize there was almost certainly a flaw in my plan--I mean, seriously, how often do people just give you candy because you show up on the doorstep in a costume--my brother did make a cute girl.