I’m trying to hang on, but there comes a point when you just have to say, “fuck you and fuck this bullshit too.” My stomach hurts a little this morning. I can still taste the chicken I ate last night. It’s as if it is just sitting there in the bottom of my stomach waiting for me to throw up. Meh.
So today is Halloween. Remember when you were younger and your parents would tell you not to take candy from strangers? Why is it that those same parents who repeat that mantra every single day when their children leave for school then take those same children door to door on Halloween to beg for candy from, yep, strangers? I guess that’s another one of those double standards. It will be interesting to see how many little kids knock on my door.
Halloween used to be fun when I was younger. Because we weren’t allowed to go trick or treating my brother and I would sit in the den close to the front door so that every time the bell rang we could jump up and answer it with my dad to see what costumes all the other kids were wearing. My dad used to give out Hershey candy bars. He gave out the plain ones and the ones with almonds. Whenever he wasn’t looking I would take one and my brother and I would greedily go hide in our playroom (yes, we had a playroom) and eat it. My dad didn’t allow us to eat very much candy. He wasn’t down for that.
Grandma on the other hand was very indulgent. Every single day at her house was like Halloween because she always had candy, donuts, cookies and all sorts of treats for us to eat and every imaginable flavor of soda (also a forbidden treat at our house) that we could want to drink. Thinking back, it’s hard to believe she was my dad’s mom because where he was very strict about most things, Grandma let us get away with murder. We used to have to go over Grandma’s house whenever our parents went out to eat or with friends or anything like that. My Grandmother lived right around the corner from us so we could easily walk over to her house. Going over there was like being in heaven. She would let us eat ourselves into sugar comas. My brother was one of those kids that got extremely hyper when he had sugar but my grandma seemed to be able to handle it.
Being at Grandma’s house on Halloween we didn’t even care about watching the front door so we could sneak candy since Grandma let us eat all the candy anyway. We were content to just watch tv, drink our sodas and eat powdered donuts all night long. Aww. I miss you Grandma.
After the divorce of my parents I moved with my mother and I had a lot more freedom. She also is not as strict as my father. Don’t be misguided though, my moms was there to serve, protect and break a nigga’s neck if you got out of line. She let me do a lot more than my dad did though and so at 16 years old I went trick or treating for the first time. I took my kid sister who was ten, my cousins Sharmayne and Cynthia (13 and 6 respectively) and we went to the neighborhood my dad lived in with all the “well to do” homes so that we could get more candy. We walked around that neighborhood for 4 hours before my Auntie came to pick us up and take us home. It was entirely too much fun. It probably would not have been as fun at 6, or 8 or 10 years old because my parent(s) would have been there and we probably wouldn’t have been able to cut up the way that we did on our own. I remember we didn’t even have real costumes; I made my sister and I up to look like punk rockers. She had the most fun and I was happy she got to experience it as a kid.
If I ever have children I will probably not let them trick or treat simply because of the begging from door to door aspect. I’ll buy them costumes and tons of candy to have in the house but all that knocking on the doors of strangers shit has got to go. There are crazy people out there. And with all the warnings this year I hope some of you reconsider your activities as well. An inventive neighborhood could organize something for the children that would keep them right on their on street with people they know to have fun. There are just too many crazies out there anyone us to be taking chances. At this point, the enemy could be right down the damn street.
Happy Halloween!
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