A Halloween Tale.

I know I always have these tales about my kids - but today I'm going to tell on myself!

I'm going to take you back several years to tell you a little Halloween story, one that is most definitely true and takes place on halloween. Many Many. Many. Many years ago.

I was 16.

You'd think at that age, I'd have outgrown the whole Trick or Treat thing - but not really - You see, I had missed Halloween while we were living overseas, as it was not a custom of the country we were living in.
Upon returning to Canada, and experiencing some culture shock, I was in Junior High before we left, and a full fledged high school student when we returned - that meant a new school, new friends, and although some of my friends remained the same, that year that I turned 16 was the year I met my friend B. (I'll not divulge her full name since she was part of this tale, and now grown up and married with 3 kids of her own - she may not want to be incriminated in this tale).

Anyway, B & I hit it off right away - she had just moved into the area, so we were both in the position of having to make new friends. We joined the same baseball team through our church, and became instant friends.

By the time Halloween rolled around - we had known each other for 3 months and being that we were both somewhat naive and immature still - we decided to go trick or treating in her neighbourhood.
Of course our little TOT party grew to include a few more....and a few more....until we had maybe 8-10 of us.

Now I like having teenagers come around at Halloween - it means they aren't in the park setting fires, or breaking into cars or other nonsense that teenagers can do when given the green light to roam around in the dark.
But back then, I guess some people took offense to young teenagers partaking in the trick or treatery.
For the most part we just enjoyed ourselves, just as much as any 10 yr old might have - and really, who doesn't like candy - everybody likes getting a pile of candy - especially me.
Well we were making our way around Romfield Cir (for those who know me) and having a grand old time - being a bit loud probably as teenagers are wont to do - but not causing the least bit of trouble. We were gracious enough to let the little ones get their haul first, and didn't set out until it was good and dark.
It soon became a competition who could get the most candy the quickest.

We raced from house to house, avoiding the ones with lights out (waste of time) and the known 'bad candy givers' - Yes you know who you are - the ones that hand out those dreadful orange and black toffee things that are brick hard and cause little kids to lose their molars on them if they dare open one. Not that it mattered, cause those were the *dreg candy* - stuff that was left in the bag long after the good stuff was gobbled up. chocolate bars good, chips, and candy made of 100% pure sugar - also good. Lollypops - not bad, you always had to have some in order to have a well rounded halloween bag. But those dreaded halloween orange and black 'kisses' were the candy kiss of death for me. Avoid houses that gave out dregs - and concentrate on having the best halloween haul ever!

And as B and I raced around to various houses - some of our group would shout back to us "Not that house - she won't answer"
Won't answer? But the light is on - it's welcoming and there's CANDY to be had there.
Not wanting to leave any good candy to waste - we were determined that said occupant would answer - but first some sleuthing had to be done.
Actually - this was just simple observation. It seemed that the door would open for small kids that had their parents with them - and yet most puzzling, the door remained closed for those in our group who made an attempt.

That's when B & I hatched our plan. No way were we going to be victims of Candy discrimination - and we had a point to prove to our chums that we were clever enough to extract candy from this house - oh yes we could, you wait and see.

So being that it was a balmy night out - we took off our shoes and crawled to the front doorstep, stood on our knees in our shoes, thus effectively cutting our height in half. Since we were wearing costumes - there was no reason to guess that we were anything other than the 5-6 yr old range - The plan had been set - it was foolproof. But would it work?
Only one way to find out.

We reached up and rang the doorbell and waited.

The curtain moved

We heard the door unlock.

A suspicious eyed woman opened the door and melted at our complete cuteness.
Seeing that we were obviously under 4 ft tall - she took the time to sweet talk us
"Oh don't you look cute - Let me get my bucket now"
And she proceded to give us Candy - and not dreg candy either - it was GOOD candy.
We remembered to raise our voices and octave as we said "thankyou"

and then our plan fell apart.

Because old woman didn't close the door right away.

"You are awfully little to be out here alone - are your parents around?"

"yes" we chorused in unison fake ultra high register voices.

"Well you be careful and have a good evening"

"OK"

And she stood there.

Watching us.

We were trapped - unable to walk away without giving up the gig and revealing that we were in fact probably too old to be trick or treating.
But since we were teenagers - and hey, we had the candy and we were wearing disguises....er costumes....well we looked at each other and in true kindred spirit....
We grabbed our shoes and raced off into the night.

Old lady was shouting from her front door
"I KNEW it - I knew you were big people" - Shaking her fist

We felt a little bad for outwitting a little old poorly sighted lady - but gee, all we wanted was the good candy. And we got it too.
In triumph we ran to our friends who were by now a good 3 houses up the street, telling them about our victory.
See - it's all about the challenge.
We won that round.

That was my last year of trick or treating, and it was so memorable - we had such a fun evening, and yes, we collected lots of candy and treats.
I didn't go out again until I had kids.

Just for the record - A baby in a cute costume is the best candy getter ever!!!
Duncan was 6 months and dressed like a little caterpiller - I couldn't wait to show him off - and of course he had a Halloween bucket to collect his bounty in. He didn't have teeth - but amazingly enough people gave him gobs and gobs of candy - to which I did the only thing that a responsible and loving mom could do - and that was to eat it for him.

Ah.... I love Candy.