On Halloween
We don’t celebrate Halloween at the Catrow house. It’s not because of religious reasons; it’s because of the jerks that live in our neighborhood.
We spent our first Halloween as a married couple in our little apartment on Ellwood Avenue. No Trick-or-Treaters came because, hello, it was a creepy apartment building where none of the hall lights worked.
So, our first year in this house, I was all about Halloween. We carved the pumpkin, bought the candy, and waited for the knocks on the door. The first few (and I mean very few) visitors were exactly what you would want to see: little ones decked out and accompanied by their parents. Cuteness was everywhere, treats were given, and thank yous were even said.
And then the sun went down.
Out came the punks.
The tentative knocks transitioned into impatient, obnoxious poundings (which were SO FUN in my house with the Commisioner of the Fun Police). Upon opening the door, I was greeted by people approaching the legal voting age, wearing normal clothes, holding plastic bags, saying absolutely nothing: no hellos, no trick-or-treats, and definitely no thank yous.
Unfortunately, the jerks outweighed the cute. Until the cute prevails, my porch light stays off.
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Tonight, we only got one intruder into our no-candy night. It involved pounding on the door and yells of “WHERE’S THE CANDY?” So endearing. I don’t regret the decision not to hand out candy at all, even if it was the very first thing we did in the neighborhood as new homeowners. The nostalgia has been replaced by cold cynicism.
We must live oh so close together because we decided not to do halloween for the same reasons. In fact, when I heard trick or treaters outside (ones that sounded like high schoolers) I went so far as to cut off the living room light because I thought it might shine outside. This just makes me sad because one of my childhood dreams of being an adult was getting to pass out candy to little kids and have spooky music playing in the background. Someday…
We had nary a treater. Last year, the lone visitor was a 14-year-old kid in street clothes at 9:00 — I gave him all three pounds of mini candy bars we had. His eyes bugged out of his head, and I imagined he scampered off cackling. I’m sort of surprised he didn’t come by tonight…
Ha, we used to live on Ellwood, a couple of times actually.
Yep, we went to church for ye ole’ Fall Fest, but RCC does it up right for the little ones.
Hi–I clicked over from The Good Kind of Dorky!
Everyone is reporting disappointing numbers of mooching teenage trick or treaters! Makes me slightly less jealous that I live in a kid-free apartment building… we didn’t even buy candy.
That’s so sad! We got 10 very cute, very polite trick or treaters. Too bad I bought enough candy for 10,000…