All Hallow's Eve

I love Halloween.

I love handing out treats, seeing the costumes, hearing the parents calling out, “don’t forget to say ‘thank you’” to their little beggars. And I love giving two candy bars to each trick or treater. When I was a kid, that was the coolest, getting two treats in our pillow case turned treat bag.

I have, on various Halloween’s, tweaked my appearance in a small way that not all the doorbell ringers noticed. I’ve had what looked like a nail through my little finger wrapped in gauze with fake blood and, one year, two little dots roughly vampire teeth distance from one another on my neck. That year I also had fake blood dripping from a corner of my mouth. I was amazed and amused by the number of trick or treaters who said, “Lady, do you know you’re bleeding?” One little girl, alone on the stoop with her mother standing back by the road, asked about the marks on my neck. I looked up in the sky and said that a vampire bat had swooped down and bit me. She started backing up, looking at the sky, BEFORE she’d gotten any candy. Now it is my aim to actually scare, but only if, a moment later, the kid starts to laugh, realizing it’s all part of the fun of Halloween. This little girl was truly scared. So I explained it was fake, that I hadn’t time to get a real costume like hers. She came back, but she still kept looking at the sky. I gave her THREE treats.

My favorite Halloween was the year I had a broken knife wrapped in cotton gauze dotted with fake blood that looked as though it went through my wrist. Many a male trick or treater, why is it always the boys, asked if they could touch the knife and, when they did, they were thrilled that the knife wiggled on both sides of my wrist. A few of the younger ones asked if it hurt. I told them I was heading to the hospital once I’d finished handing out treats and they’d giggle and run back to tell their parents. Apparently, one child was convinced I actually had a knife through my wrist because he came up to the house again with his parent, a parent who asked if I’d explain that the knife was fake. I showed the youngster how it all went together and told him he was now in on the secret which nobody else knew. If you’ve never seen a three-foot tall pirate with a fake parrot on his shoulder smile a grin so wide that you remember it years later, then all I can say is, you need to start handing out treats on Halloween.

And while you’re at it, hand out two.