Happy Halloween!

I get to look forward to trick-or-treating with my 8 year old daughter tonight, and it's going to be around 25 degrees Farenheit. Brrrrr! She is going to be dressed as a dead baseball player. We bought the required grey and white face paint, and she will wear her softball uniform, cleats, and we'll paint her face to resemble death. Never has she wanted the cutesy, girly, frilly costumes. Vampires, ghosts, scary things are more her style. And that's fine with me! I'm not a cutesy, girly, frilly type woman either!

My son wants to go trick-or-treating too, but we already rented his Elvis costume and returned it last week so he could wear it to school all day and wear it to the dance as well. He looked great. We told him he couldn't go because he's already taller than me now! He's 5'10". With a bass voice. So maybe it's time to give it up? But just in case, I'm prepared to help him become a dead soccer player.

The trouble with the whole trick-or-treat thing in Montana is that it's so much colder than a witch's tit that kids either have to wear a full length furry costume with long johns underneath, or they have to just go door to door with full winter gear on over their costumes. Sad, I know. And it sucks the double big one for the parents who care enough to take their kids out.

Previous years we've enjoyed Trunk-or-Treat, the activity the youth put on at church where the whole ward comes dressed up and they park in the church parking lot and park with trunks inward, and the kids walk around getting candy from all the decorated trunks until the supply is gone. Last year the witch's tit demanded that we take it indoors, so the people had to line the church hallways and the kids walked from bowl to bowl for candy galore.

What's up with those cheapskates who only hand out Tootsie Rolls?

I have to actually hand it to the cheapskates...as a kid my siblings and I would actually use PILLOWCASES to trick-or-treat with, since little, puny plastic pumpkins or flimsy plastic bags would never hold up under the sheer weight of it all.

We'd get home, demand hot chocolate, and each take a corner of the living room for the Most Important Halloween Event Ever: LET THE TRADING BEGIN.

Each of us would dump our pillowcase, then sort and count. This was serious business. If you forgot to pee first, you waited and ignored all discomfort and distraction. There was no way you could leave your pile, because when you returned, it'd be half the size you dumped out. No talking happened during the sort and count, unless it was an awed "Ooooh, a Whole Snickers Bar!" or a mumbled "Who gives a darn toothbrush anyway?"

Inevitably my piles would show that cheapskates do in fact rule the world...the Tootsie Roll pile was always the biggest. But I had a secret. Tootsie Rolls were my LEAST favorite. I had some serious trading power at my disposal.

Next came the best part: The NEGOTIATION. My favorite thing to trade for was the Dubble Bubble gum. Especially if the gumballs were of the fresh variety, meaning you could actually make a dent when you squeezed them. You either got the petrified or the fresh, no in-between. Either way, they are better than sex sometimes. Who cares if the flavor only lasts 4.3 seconds??

Once the trading was done, it was time for the most important part of all, Finding the Best Hiding Spot Ever. Without this detail taken care of, all previous efforts are deemed a waste.

Not that it truly matters, since for me, the candy was gone in less than a week. I really enjoy my candy, damnit. My children amaze me with their ability to save Halloween and Easter candy until it's stale. It's only because they found a Hiding Spot Mom Can't Find.

The photo included here: my dad's creativity at its best.