Entries (RSS)Note: I’ve started a new category to track all the posts for the month. Since this isn’t quite NaBloPoMo, I’m listing it as ScaBloPoMo (Scarab’s Blog Posting Month). Thanks very much to Debra for suggesting the name. 
I used to love Halloween as a kid. Decorating, carving pumpkins, getting all dressed up and trick or treating. I don’t remember exactly when it was that I stopped trick or treating. I just felt like I was too old. That was also when I stopped dressing up since there generally weren’t Halloween parties going on either. At that point, I was kinda out of the Halloween thing. Mom really loves seeing all the little kids in their costumes, so she usually took care of handing out the candy. I watched some scary movies and snagged what I could out of the candy bowl, but otherwise Halloween wasn’t any big deal.
That changed again when I got to college. Halloween was a big deal for our floor. We went all out on decorations and even had skits during judging. One year was just a lot of black with a sacrifice. Another year was the happy hell. I think that was the year we won and ticked off the other floors cause no one could understand our decorations. We had lots of bright colors, flowers, etc. But during judging we had little girls in overalls and pigtails following the judges repeatedly singing just the lines “I love you. You love me.” from the Barney song, a girl scout shoving cookies down the throat of a guy chained to a wall while holding milk just out of reach, etc. Basically warping any happy, wholesome idea we could come up with. Another year, since we were on the Honors Floor, we had a look into the life of honors students. You got to see our RA dressed up and dancing like a ballerina to Metallica songs, a dominatrix whipping C and D students while forcing them to study, and F students being executed. And every year, everyone got dressed up and we watched scary movies, hit the haunted houses, went to the bars or parties and made a 45-min drive to Steak and Shake about 3 am. Good times.
After college, things got not quite so fun again. I think I went to some haunted houses one year. And I’ve handed out candy. But there hasn’t really been anything exciting going on. And more and more, Halloween is starting to really just get irritating. I live in a nice area that’s only a couple blocks away from some questionable areas. They aren’t bad, but they aren’t great. And certainly not a great area for kids to wander around trick or treating since there aren’t really sidewalks or a lot of street lights. Since there’s a lot of houses pretty close together here, and it’s a pretty safe area to walk around, people swarm to this area. Heavy traffic is usually a car about every 20 min, but on Halloween, the streets are lined and there are always about 4-5 cars moving up and down the streets at any given time. Just gobs of people.
The first year, this was fun. Lots of people, lots of kids in costumes, etc. We never got many trick or treaters growing up cause we’ve always lived in a sorta isolated area without a ton of kids. So this was different. But over the years, you see a lot of the good and the bad. The night usually starts out OK. All the cute, little kids are out. The ones that are barely able to say “Trick or treat” or “Thank you” and have to be reminded what to say. But the later it gets, the more I just start seeing the kids as greedy little…stinkers, for lack of a better word. Here’s a few of the things that have started to irritate me over the years:
- Repeatedly ringing the doorbell. Once is generally enough. “Ding da ding da ding d-d-d-ding” doesn’t make me get to the door faster. There was even one boy last night who kept hitting the doorbell even after I was opening the door.
- Ringing the doorbell even though all the outside lights have been turned off. Early on, I had no idea just how crazy things got around here, so I ran out of candy. The one year, I actually had to put a note on the door that said “Sorry. Ran out of candy.” cause the kids would not stop ringing the doorbell. Even after that I heard a bunch of kids come up to the door and then yell back to the group that there was no candy. Apparently having lights are on inside the house means I’m home and I must give out candy. This one really gets me. Apparently, a lot of parents aren’t teaching their children good Halloween manners anymore.
- Unabashed greed. Now, I realize Halloween is a big of a greedy holiday. All about getting as much candy as you can. But there’s a point where it’s just too much. Last night, Mr. B had one kid that saw a particular type of candy and asked if he could have it. Fine, no problem. He let the kid grab the one he wanted. Well, the problem was there’s often a line of kids 4-8 deep by the time you get to the door. So the next kid asked if he could pick his own. Well, then the whole line had to pick their own, and about halfway through, Mr. B had to repeatedly say “Hey, now don’t get greedy” cause of course some of the kids were trying to grab a handful.
- Kids that don’t say anything at all. No “Trick or treat” or “Thank you”. Not even a “Hi” or “Happy Halloween”. This just comes across as rude, regardless of their intentions.
- Older kids who don’t dress up at all. Not even a mask.
This year Mr. B handed out most of the candy. He gets a big kick out of it and loves talking to all the kids, so I leave him to it. I must just be difficult or something. Is it unreasonable for me to get irritated about the stuff above? Once or twice I can ignore, but over and over all night starts to wear on me. Anyway, last night was pretty packed. We went through 6 big bags of candy and 5 small bags of candy with just a few little scraps left over. This was actually the first year we had anything leftover. For some reason, things slowed down about 7:30, which is quite unusual. But, Mr. B had a good time. I got to see some of the cute kids early before he got here and took over. So I guess it wasn’t too bad a night.
