this is the first halloween we haven't lived in a locked gate apartment building (Oakland norm) and we're finally experiencing hallow's eve revelers. though our street gets alot of pedestrian activity in general since its up the block from the Laurel shopping district, we got less than two dozen kids (assumably cuz the single family homes in the Hills have better loot than the apartment dense Flats and the elementary schools hold safe halloween parties on campus). and we got the good candy reese's peanut butter cups, kit-kats, snickers, butterfingers...
so there were a handful cute little kindergartners & babies in full zip up costumes accompanied by their parents--and don't think the parents didn't try to hustle for their fair share--they got three pieces.
then there were the middle school kids who are starting to be a little too cool for costumes, so they rocked their urban stylishness, trendy tops, cropped jeans oh and a mask that they carried in their hand and would only don by request. we got some backtalk, but mostly they were sweet. saccharine sweet. they got two pieces.
then there were the packs of high schoolers or as i like to call them roving teenage bandits. these young'uns didn't even bother with costumes. they just roll up on your doorstep, do a a quarter turn when you answer the door so you could put the bribe--i mean treats--in their backpacks.
RTB: "trick or treat!"
me: "what are you dressed as?"
RTB: "oh. mahself."
all sassy attitude.me: "uh-huh. nice try." give two pieces of candy anyway because at this point, it's extortion.
RTB: "Happy Halloween!"
five of them at time. then roll out. and one of them threw their candy wrapper on our lawn. roll eyes.
Halloween sucks. is it just the new millenium and the culture of violence & depravity that have sucked all the fun out of this childhood ritual?
we watched the highly promoted reality show live Halloween special Ghost Hunters on the SciFi channel. six hours in a haunted abandoned sanitorium. yawn. we get suckered by this show every week by teasers that promise spectral thrills and all we get is temperature fluctuations, boring conversations between investigators as they while away the wee hours, and then anti-climactic electronic voice phenomenon (eery voices on a tape recorder. anything remotely exciting (like the blankets that mysteriously got pulled off the feet in the middle of the night) they go out of their way to debunk in that WASPy new england empirical way.) and yet like a sucker, i will watch the reveal next wednesday anyways.
the most exciting thing that happened is that all the commotion at the door freaked out our "special needs" cat rồngtý and he started obsessively licking his elbow raw again. so we double dosed him with rescue remedy and let him nurse tiêntý for comfort. hey, who are we to impose our human morals on other beings? we took their reproductive organs and this is how they get their rocks off. it's the rare time that they actually purr for more than 30 seconds.
