There is one day every year where kids get to put on their cutest or scariest costumes and are rewarded with candy for their efforts. This day has many different names, some call it All Hollow's Eve, the Mexican people refer to it as the day of the dead, Micheal Jackson referred to it as every Friday at the Neverland Ranch. I am of course talking about Halloween, a day where good dental health was put on the back burner and the ugly kids could finally walk around in public without offending anyone. I remember as a boy being whisked from house to house along with my brothers and sisters, marveling over the amount of candy we received and rushing home to reap the rewards of our journey. I have fond memories of sorting through piles of candy looking for the best ones first, eating candy until your stomach hurt, and looking confused as my brothers and sister told me that that razor blade in the apple was good for me, and that I should eat it, yes I took a lot of heat for ruining the split of a six pack of Oka-dokas.
As I've gotten older trick or treating has become a thing of the past, until this year, when I decided to see what would happen if I went around from house to house asking for candy. I wanted to see if Halloween was still just for kids, or could anybody get in on the action, so with that in mind, lets get to the findings shall we.
*The first thing every good trick or treater needs is a costume. Instead of going and buying a costume I decided to use what things I had at home. Taking an old work shirt and pants I cut some holes and using a hockey mask I decided on Jason from the Friday the 13th movies, it's been done a lot but its and oldie but a goodie. I figured some people may call this uninspired so I thought I needed a trial run. First finding of my research: people DO NOT like it if you show up in costume at their door in a mask on a day that's not Halloween, girls WILL scream loudly, and WILL call the cops without hesitation. My research got off to a rocky start.
*The second thing every trick or treater needs is a good route, preferably close to their home base and houses that look like good locations where they can score the best treats. So I walked down my street looking for houses that were decorated for Halloween as I figured they would be most likely to participate in the festivities. In an interesting turn of events when people saw me do this they ran in fear, some brave souls chased me with bats. I found this data to be rather interesting until I remembered I still had my costume on. So I ditched the mask for the rest of the walk, and people were much more receptive, seeing my tattered rags some even gave me money, and encouraging advice such as buy myself a warm coffee and don't spend it on booze.
*So last night was the big night, as the time to leave grew closer the anticipation started to build. I knew the kids would have a head start as their parents would want to get them to bed early, so I knew this would be a hindrance to my plan of getting the best candy possible. However; I have many things in my favor, I am older, somewhat wiser, my legs are longer so I am faster, and I'm pretty agile for my size, able to leap tall kids in a single bound. I decided to leave the house around six, starting with houses in my general area, and lets just say things got off to a rocky start. The reactions of the first few houses ranged from scream, slap, groin kicking, mace, BEAR MACE, actual MID-EVIL mace(seriously who has one of those), bag of popcorn, being chased by a shotgun toting old women. Seriously if your girlfriend is that nervous, don't leave her home alone when a thirty year old man in rags and a goalie mask comes knocking asking if she has any candy.
While my experiment got off to a bad start, you will be glad to know it ended quite successfully. Whats that? you say, it did not seem like I was successful, sure the reception at the houses might not have been the warmest, but for all their efforts the police never caught me, and thanks to that chance encounter with those surprised and scared little kids, I came home with quite the haul indeed.
Conclusions: while Halloween can be a difficult day to get ready for, it can also be easy if you do it right, kind of like stealing candy from a baby...............or a bunch of 8 year olds.
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