O Halloween! That finest of kid’s holidays, calculated to arouse only slightly less greed in the mind of youth than Christmas.
In halcyon days of yore I put a great deal of effort into Halloween. I was never permitted to buy one of those nifty plastic jumpsuits with accompanying masks o’ flimsyness. Man, how I wanted one of those el-cheapo deals. Instead I suffered year after year with spectacular homemade gear limited only by my imagination. One year I went as a Spider-Man robot because we couldn’t figure out how to do a jumpsuit and happened to have an oversized cardboard box lying about. I went as an Indian, a cowboy, a Biker Scout in an righteous homemade uniform, a scarecrow, a headless LtCdr USNR and I’m sure many other things I have forgotten in the intervening years.
I’d plan my night, figure out how to blanket the entire area to ensure the largest possible stash, spend hours poring over my haul, sorting and dissecting all the things in my treat bag and lustily cursing whichever thrice-damed idiot thought an apple was a suitable piece of Halloween plunder. CANDY! People, CANDY! Stupid jackasses.
And then, the entire haul – generally minus the Smarties – would go in the garbage by Christmas. Because, after all, I’m not really a fan of sweets.