AnonymousCoworker

Shockingly, last night wasn’t that bad. Not ALL bad anyway. Parking on my brother’s street was kind of difficult, which is odd, because typically there’s a huge expanse of parking that any idiot could drive a limo into. In fact, most of his neighbors are SO desperately clinging to their cushy suburban lifestyle that they will YELL at you if you don’t leave an ENTIRE car length of empty space between your car and their car. As if parking 3 feet away from their bumper is the equivalent of welding their car into a metal box and burying it 20 feet underground. So last night was kind of crazy because families from all over bussed their kids in to sweep through the densely packed townhouses on an evening quest to give their children pancreatic shock and early onset diabetes.

And though many piglets lined up at the trough last night, I didn’t see any that were particularly plump, particularly greedy, or particularly rude. Though Mokie did inform me that one little plumpkin grabbed a pudgy handful of candy after his friends had modestly selected one piece each, and even after Mokie barked out an admonishment of “Aa!” typically reserved for disciplining his dog did the little porker drop most of the handful, stuffing what remained stuck to his sweaty hand into his bag before absconding.

Aside from the typical groups of kids that I saw last night, there are three I’d like to describe to you. The first group consisted of three teenagers; two in costume, one too “cool” or too embarrassed to dress up hung out on the sidewalk, douchetooth headset firmly implanted into his ear. Admittedly, the two that had dressed up were in good costumes. The young man was dressed in a toga (and not just a bedsheet) and the young woman was dressed in lederhosen and said “trick or treat,” or some variation thereof, in German, but as someone who doesn’t speak German, I have no idea if she was lying or not. They seemed to be dating, and I thought, “You could be having sex right now, but you’re out collecting candy. How sad.” Because generally, I think if you’re old enough for sex, you’re too old for trick or treating. So I made them say “trick or treat” in unison three times at increasing volumes until they said it sufficiently loudly enough. Then I gave them each one year-old tootsie roll that Mokie had been distributing to all the kids. It’s good to be the king.

The second group was depressing at best. Two more teens with a younger sibling (child?) in tow came to the door and when I opened it I realized they were both actively smoking. Each held a lit cigarette between index and middle fingers of the same hand that clutched at a greasy yellowed pillowcase that they were using to collect candy. In fairness, they said “trick or treat” and “please” and “thank you” and “Happy Halloween” and in general were the only group that didn’t have to be prodded to do so, but if you’re old enough to smoke, you’re too old to be trick or treating. They got year-old tootsie rolls as well, and seemingly happy, moved on.

The final group featured three boys who appeared to be about 9 or 10 years old. Two of them were dressed as Spiderman, or a skeleton, or Batman, or a ninja, or something else forgettable, but the other one was dressed as Leonidas from 300. I pointed to the two uninspiring candy-hobos and said, “You say ‘trick or treat’” and then pointed to the little Leonidas and said, “You say the line from the movie.”

“Trick or treat” came the response from the unimaginative piglets. “Really?” said Leonidas.

“Yes.”

He huffed and dropped his head, and I figured I had just hurt his feelings or pushed too far into his comfort zone when he looked up again and literally bellowed, “This is SPARTAAAA!” I cracked up, everybody inside cracked up, and his parents waiting on the sidewalk cracked up. I dropped a year-old tootsie roll into the bag of each whatever they were, and told the Spartan to wait. I ran back inside and grabbed the one full-sized candy bar that we had and dropped it into his bucket.

“Thanks!”

I was hoping for more kids to mess with, but the streets were getting sparse and the groups were fewer and further between. Five minutes later we ran out of candy, shut off the lights, and concluded another Halloween.