Almaden Resident
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Halloween isn't too early for Scrooge
By Dave Kehmeier
As usual, I'm having a hard time getting excited about Halloween. It seems like an awful lot of effort just so our youth can traipse around their neighborhoods filling up king-sized pillow cases with cheap candy from strangers who keep all the good stuff for themselves, which is why no trick-or-treater will ever get a 100 Grand bar from me.
My apathy is deeply rooted in my past. Trick-or-treating as a kid was hardly worth it to me. There were only about a dozen houses within walking distance of our home. Plus, Halloween nights in Colorado are mighty chilly. That's why I always wore the same costumea bear mask and my mom's old fur-lined coat turned inside out. (Here, I will be politically correct by claiming the coat lining was either fake fur or prairie dog fur, of which there is no shortage in those parts.)
Mostly, I got boring stuff like cookies and popcorn balls. Occasionally, if I was really lucky, I got a few pieces of candy corn in plastic wrap with an orange grocery tie. Whoopee. For obvious reasons, I pretty much gave up on Halloween when I outgrew my mom's coat.
It's no surprise what happened one year when I was going to college in Boulder. I was living in my brother Ralph's condo while he was working in Saudi Arabia. It didn't occur to me on Halloween night that trick-or-treaters might hit the condo. I was genuinely surprised when the first little monsters rang the doorbell. I opened the door and stared dumbly at them for a moment before it dawned on me what they were after.
"Wait a minute," I said calmly, closing the door. I frantically ransacked the kitchen, tossing aside ramen, beer, frozen pizza, Morning Thunder tea, and other student staples until I came upon the only candy-like item I could finda box of Wrapples for making caramel apples. I had no idea how long they'd been there. They could have been Ralph's, for all I knew.
I opened the door and tossed one of the caramel disks into each kid's bag, much to their bewilderment. Whew. I had dodged a bullet.
Not for long. The next group of trick-or-treaters cleaned me out of Wrapples. I resorted to handing out small change. That didn't last long, either. The only thing sweet I had left was orange juice. It would have been pretty amusing to drop Dixie cups of that into their treat bags, but I opted to turn down the lights and stop answering the door instead. From then on throughout my single years, I always arranged to be somewhere else on Halloween.
Then, I got married and had kids. Halloween ceased to be an optional holiday for me. I found myself stringing Halloween lights and putting up decorations at their request. I helped them come up with costumes and mutilate pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns. They made it hard for me to ignore Halloween which, thanks to the candy cartel, they continue to rate second only to Christmas as their favorite holiday.
Having candy on hand was no longer a problem, at least. Every Halloween, my wife, Ellie, buys more than we can possibly give out or consume. "Don't worry," she always says. "I'll take what's left into work for the people there." By "people," I assume she means herself because what's left always happens to be Reese's--her favorite.
One Halloween, mostly to amuse myself, I put on an old Ruff McGruff dog mask and filled up a dog food bag with candy. Every time the doorbell rang, I'd start barking and growling, open the door and hand the trick-or-treaters something from the doggie bag.
Most kids either didn't get the joke or were way too cool to show it. One little girl I barked at turned and made a beeline back to her parents who were maintaining a respectful distance down the sidewalk. I took off the mask and apologized profusely with my tail between my legs, but the damage was done. The girl didn't want any of my candy. Bad dog.
Our kids are older now. It's still my job to string up the Halloween lights, but they and Ellie do the rest of the decorating. They are in the process of pulling together their own costumes, although I may have to intervene with my son, Will, to tone down the blood and gore in his. And I doubt they'll want to carve pumpkins when I tell them they're old enough to scrape out the guts themselves. So, I'm looking forward to a low-key Halloween this year.
For old time's sake, though, I may try to find a few boxes of Wrapples for the trick-or-treaters.
Dave Kehmeier is an Almaden Valley resident and a regular contributor to the Almaden Resident. You can reach him at djkehmeier@sbcglobal.net.
