Why I Hate Halloween

It’s my second-least favorite holiday (after April Fools’ Day—don’t get me started).

When I was a kid, I loved Halloween. Free candy? Yes, please. The opportunity to don a costume and pretend you’re a celebrity, a sports star, a zombie? Sure, I was a kid and all about make-believe. But like so many childhood pleasures, it soon came to an end, mostly. Being the older brother, I wound up dragging along with my younger sibling for a few years until he demanded he be able to go along, alone, with his buddies.

I was fine with this. Even as a teen, I felt the day (and the night) was for the younger kids. I thought it was stupid for kids my age (or older) to “dress up” for the night, although they hardly made an effort, usually in “bum” or “tramp” camouflage. One kid I knew borrowed his older college-age brother’s clothing and went as a hippie, but that was about the only sign of creativity. It was all about the goodies, remember?

Nowadays, Halloween is a bigger deal than ever, and everyone of all ages gets into it, or so it seems. Adults spend big bucks at Spirit of Halloween shops (the cheaper ones go to Goodwill, whose stores have rows and rows of gently used costumes), and there are parties galore. It’s most likely blasphemous for me to proclaim my dislike for Halloween, living where I do—next door to my village is the town of St. Helens, which celebrates as “HalloweenTown” every October (the movie was filmed there).

But to me, it will always be something just for kids.

And then I played a trick on the older ones…

This is a true story. I was 28, married for five years, and living with my spousal unit in a modest subdivision in Ann Arbor, MI. We’d been there for two Halloweens already, and each year we were inundated with kids of all ages. The first year, we tried popping popcorn to give to everyone, and we ran out; the next year, we made a lot more and had some miniature Snickers as backup, and still had nothing at the end of the evening. Needless to say, this did not sit well with the older kids who flocked to our door in the later hours; we were TP’d in our second year, and I fear it was because some kids got stiffed.

For Halloween, 1980, I had a plan (and I remember exactly the year—you’ll see why in a moment). We chickened out on popcorn but had bags galore of candy…and still, I wanted to “do something special” for the older kids who would grace our door in the later hours. By “something special,” I meant to dash their desire ever to want to come back to our place ever again. For the older kids, I had something in mind other than candy…but like the sweet snacks, wrapped in shiny foil packages.

When they came to the door, I reached into our “bowl of goodies,” but I already had their prizes in hand. I knew they’d be jostling each other, goofing around, and not paying much attention as I swiftly placed the items in their bag (always a used pillowcase…like I said, no imagination at all). They left as quickly as they came, and in my mind, I foresaw one of two scenarios once they went to retrieve their rewards:

One:

Like most kids, they’d have to display their ill-gotten gains in front of their parents, either to brag or to have the folks give it a review for dangerous items like razor blades in apples and drugs in God-knows what (it was the times, man). I snickered as I could see them do the dump and proudly proclaim:

“I got a full-size Three Musketeers, cookies, lots of Starbursts, and…what the hell is this?”

Parent: “Let me see that. WHERE DID YOU GET THIS?”

Two:

Dumping the bag on their bed, my victim paws through the pile of goodies. Spying something he’s (hopefully) never seen before, he examines it, realizes the treasure he now owns, and stuffs it in his wallet (the traditional parking spot). Hopefully, it will come in handy someday and prevent his prodigy from spawning.

And the reason I remember that this was Halloween, 1980, was because I had just had a successful vasectomy a few months earlier, and didn’t need those foil-wrapped condoms any longer.

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