for all the years I've wished for a home with multitudes of trick-or-treaters, I have NEVER met my match as I just did at my house in Newnan, GA.
holy monsters! at one point I opened the door and before i even saw a masked face i heard a parent say "wait jacob, theres a line, wait your turn"....i peeked around the corner of my door to see about 30 costumed children. all muttering and yelping "trick or treat!" --down the road, crowds and crowds of children ventured from house to house to gather treats. it was fantastic!
and a little overwhelming. i ran out of $30 worth of candy before dark, and flipped off the porch light before i had to give bad news to the next round of spidermen, storm troopers, cinderellas, pirates, fairy princesses and gypsies....better luck next year.
the big victorian home across the street had a great display, with lights and spooky music playing until 7pm.
after scraping the bottom of the candy cauldron, i snuck upstairs to watch the late evening halloween goers (the ones i wish i still had candy for, because halloween is only really fun after dark) next year i'll play up a big shabang, and hopefully have a pumpkin carving party for all the friends who still dont mind driving way down (or up, or over) to newnan.
on my way home from work, i saw one house where the owners were dressed up like the adams family. face paint and all. and at first i felt bad that i didn't put that much effort into halloween. but then i though. shoot, when you're retired you can do that sort of thing!" and settled on being a good treater just for having some candy.
and i stress "candy" because during our visit to "wal-fart" as it is so endearingly called by beaux kev, i stated that i wanted to give "healthy" treats. like apples and granola bars. and was immediately corrected and stood so as i realized i was verging on becoming "one of those" who seem to RUIN halloween by giving such "treats" that totally evade the purpose of children gaining as much chocolate and sugar as possible. i remembered dumping my pumpkin bucket out in the living room floor and being entirely too excited about milky way bars and kit kats, and only caring for the boxes of raisins because when empty you could make deafening whistles and squeals with them. haha. so i bought bags and bags of CANDY. good old mini candy bars, goobers, pixie stix!, warheads, doublebubble, malted balls and sugar daddys.
right before i ran out, i was sitting on the front porch with my bowl of goodies, and i heard a little boy yell from down the street "hey daddy, a light! yay! a porch light!" because most of the houses around here had resigned themselves for the night. and i giddily wished them all a happy halloween and dumped the rest of my sugary bounty into their orange cellophane bags.
a few "good" parents made sure their kids said "thank you" and i heard threats to take away some treat bags if their kiddies weren't saying it. hilarious. some little kids were so terrified by the really scary costumes that they were already crying by the time they got to my porch. hah. i didn't even have time to dress up so it wasn't me. but there were a few masks that even spooked me!
and so a good time was had by myself and my terribly inquisitive kitties, who, being black, made a feast of being the great center of attention this time of year.
so Happy Halloween to all. and to all a good night.
