We get an average of two trick-or-treaters when Halloween is upon our town home complex. Last night we got one; a youngster dressed as Death who got himself a handful of snack-sized Skittles. Halloween is much changed since I donned a costume. Parents did not drive their kids to go trick-or-treating. If you wanted the big candy payoff, you earned it by braving the elements (it is always fifteen degrees colder on All Hallows Eve in Colorado) and walking until your feet bled. You would come home sniffling and collapse from exhaustion, not caring when your Dad stole the Snickers from your sack in the middle of the night. Town home and apartment complexes were like money in the bank for trick-or-treating back then. An orgy of corn syrup, chocolate, caramel and preservatives awaited for a kid who was willing to rip off “Trick or treat” in rapid-fire succession. I thought that with the burned out unit, we would at least get some middle-schoolers around here playing Ouija and worshiping the devil. Nothing. The Wife clicked the front porch light off at 10:15pm and died a little on the inside.
“Doesn’t anyone want candy anymore, Matty?”
“I guess not, honey.”
“Hold me.”
“Indeed.”
5 Comments
Yo, back in the day you also had to dodge the requisite teenagers looking to ruin your Halloween by hiding in a bush and jacking all your night’s work.
Fast forward 20 years…those are the same assholes who drive their bastard fat kids from block to block.
Good call, CH.
What about those kids that would sneak up behind you, cut the bottom of your bag with a butterfly knife and hold their bag up and let all your candy spill in? If you were wearing a mask, you couldn’t hear that shit. Fast-forward 20 years: those guys are in jail for armed robbery.
The small town festivities where I grew-up were insane. They got more and more tame as I got older because they got more police involved, but it typically included lots of eggs, lighting trash cans on fire, defacing cop cars with spray paint, tp’ing people’s houses etc. You would definitely go to jail for that stuff now. It eventually got to the point where the police would ask the grocery store to not sell TP and eggs a couple of days before Halloween, etc.
Granted, they were still spanking kids in HS until my Freshman year, and it was impossible to get a DUI until the mid-90’s there too…
Sounds like a dreamworld, B.
I’m looking to pick up a meth addiction during my unemployment…where on the Colorado plains is that again?
If you all really miss that feeling or want to experience the trick or treaters, I welcome you to come to my crib next year! The son-of-a- bitch middle schoolers which is 200 yards away got my ass off the couch until 9:30. Ill guess about 150 fat bastards rang my door bell— Thank god I had some left over smarties from last year to finish the night off.