Halloween Memories

As an adult, Halloween means 2 weeks of scary movies on TV, turning out the lights so the neighbourhood kids don't know I'm home and the opportunity to dress provocatively without being accused, however, righfully, of being a slut. Good times!

As a kid, I remember being indifferent about the whole candy acquisition part of the holiday...I didn't mind candy, I just wasn't as crazy about it as most kids were...my Halloween candy trove would, literally, last until spring.

I did, however, enjoy immensely the "dressing up and being someone else" part of Halloween...

Halloween was often snow-covered in the town in which I grew up. My parents, of course, wanted to keep me warm--so they dressed me up in my parka, pulled up the fur-covered hood and my mom drew red circles on my cheeks with her lipstick and--voila!--Eskimo. They repeated this costume for three years straight. Those tricky bastards!

Oh well--I didn't know any better. .. :)

My dog was just as displeased with me, year after year, trying to dress her up to come out trick or treating with me.

She quickly dispensed with the clown mask I tried to attach to her head one year.

I thought she might be more amenable to dressing up as my version of an "arab" (where I got these ideas, I have no idea)--sheet over her head with a hat on top--but that one didn't survive much longer than the clown mask. To my poor dog Chimo's chagrin, this particular look would pop up several more times over the years, as extant photographic evidence will attest.

Let's stroll down memory lane, shall we...everyone remembers:

• Those great houses that gave out WHOLE chocolate bars or cans of pop--we always tried to hit those places every year (if not more than once in a night)!
• Those horrible houses that gave out apples, raisins or, in the dental hygienist's case, mini-tootbrushes (you KNOW her house got egged, year after year...)
• Your parents going through your candy searching for razor-blade-studded apples or cyanide-laced Smarties.

Ah, Halloween.

I'm still bitter about Halloween in Grade 1--I had the chicken pox and missed the day we all got to dress up at school and have a party. The other kids got cupcakes. I got an oatmeal bath.

Wow, I just had an epiphany! I think I've pinpointed the nucleus of my pervading belief that the world owes me something....

The world owes me cupcakes.

Gimme some.