October 31, 2006

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.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Alright, let's set the record straight on several things about this post. YOU WERE THE BIGGEST HOARDER OF CANDY EVER!!! Bar NONE! You would NEVER eat your stuff. "I want to save it so I'll have if for later". But later never came. Hey, it worked for me, because your memory was never good enough to totally remember how big your stash (so not secretly hidden) was.
Gum slut you were! Remember the long packages of rainblow from Kwik
Way. The best.
My favorite was filling our pillowcases (the big KING SIZED ones) with the candy from the house of the old ladies that were too tired to stay up, so they left the bowl of candy on the porch! We had no shame.
As for cheapskates, I bought 3 HUGE Costco bags of tootsie rolls to hand out at the mall tonight! LOL, thanks for calling me on it! Guess I'll be stopping by the store for good stuff to mix with em on my way in. Your shame worked me, as it always does. But really, what is it about tootsie rolls that makes you eat 25 if you eat 1! I hate that!
Finally, the best about trading time was V & T falling victim to our tag team "I'll trade you 3 smarties and this little bag of candy corn V for your carmel apple sucker". V said, "No, I like these". Tag team Eric, "Val, are you serious! You should TOTALLY take that deal! You're getting tons for 1 sucker. Do it before she changes her mind." Knowing the whole time, that I'd be sneaking that sucker out of your stash in about a weeek! Or, T who was never old enough to defend herself. We'd just take it! Sigh, oh good times in the old Hilltop Pirates Lair....

Sister Mary Lisa said...

You had me rolling around laughing here, Eric, as usual. Too funny. If I had your memory, I'd be a serious force to be reckoned with. I'd quit my job and become a professional blogger, seriously.

:) Love you, and Happy Halloween, you cheapskate turned great!

Tootsie Rolls are the main reason I never take my kids to the mall to trick-or-treat. I'd rather just spend the $0.50 tomorrow for the giant bag of Tootsie Rolls in the discount bin and call it good.

One good thing about Tootsie Rolls, they were created by an Austrian. (Thanks for the knowledge, Janet!)

Sister Mary Lisa said...

Oh, yeah, Eric, one more thing. With my memory (or lack thereof), if I found a hiding spot that was really super, then I'D forget where I hid it. That kind of defeats the purpose, don't you think?

MattMan said...

Sorry for the one-liner, but...

"Who cares if the flavor only lasts 4.3 seconds??"

ROTFL!

Cele said...

Oh mi gosh you and Eric are too funny. But I really want to know where on God's green earth did you find fresh Double Bubble or Bazooka for that matter?

Reading this made me think of the year (probably 64) that the people around the corner gave out Vote for Goldwater rulers with a nickel glued to it.

I'm not sure they had their targe demographics down right.

Sideon said...

My family hoarded - we didn't negotiate and we didn't share. We each ended up with a pile of candy that we didn't like - it got hard and we threw it away.

When I'm a god in the afterlife, the rules will be like this:

* 10 minute orgasms
* 10 minutes of gum flavor bursts
* no cheapskate candy givers

I could go on and on, but that'd be off topic, and I have a story to finish.

Did I mention that I'm using a new computer and keyboard and that I can't type worth hell?

Ack.

Hugs!

Christy said...

SML-- is that you and your family in that picture?? If so, that's the first I've seen of you! What a gorgeous family!

Love this post! Happy Halloween!

Sister Mary Lisa said...

Mattman, someday I'll post about my addiction to Dubble Bubble Bubble Gum. Sigh. My jaw hurts just thinking about my last episode.

Cele, sometimes you just get lucky and find a WHOLE BAG of fresh ones. See comment above about my sore jaw.

Sideon, how come I couldn't have been spared and got YOU as my god??

Christy, yes, that's us. Old and horrible pics, but that's us. I'm the little pink head attached to the great body I wish I had!