Trick or Treat

Ah Halloween. The most festive undead season of the year. As a kid I used to long for Halloween and my yearly allotment of candy overdosing.
When I was a kid, costumes were made of plastic. From the plastic mask to the plastic suit. Inevitably, you ended up wearing a winter coat over your costume so no one really knew who the heck you were supposed to be.
Case in point; when I was 9 Big Sister and I went trick-or-treating with some friends and our cousins. My costume was to be Princess Leia. Yeah, it was a real stretch of the imagination considering I was wearing a "dress" made out of a white sheet with a silver "disco belt" around it (with a squirrel buckle, I might add). I ended up looking more like a pregnant Princess Leia because Mom made me wear my winter coat underneath the dress. Well, there went that illusion.
Big Sister was a "farm girl" complete with orange yarn braids, freckles and coveralls. Ok, it wasn't that bad, but, she didn't have a real pitchfork. She used a red devil pitchfork that we had from a previous costume. I thought it was hilarious. She got even with me tho'. When Mom grouped us together to take our picture, she stuck the pitchfork up behind my head so it looked like Princess Leia had a trident coming out of her head. Nice.
Baby sister was something, but we really don't remember what because she had her Cookie Monster winter coat on. So, we just told everyone she was Cookie Monster. What did she care? She was 3.
Big Sister's friend, Barbie, came along with us. She was mortified because her mother picked out a costume for her. She was Snow White. She was quite pouty behind her smiling plastic mask of Snow White and if you looked closely enough at the photo, you could see she was scowling.
The best costume went to my cousin, Suanne. Decked out in a blue Polaris snow suit complete with winter boots.  Over the top of her snowsuit, she was wearing a plastic Fonzie vest and plastic smiling Fonzie mask.
She rocked the Fonzie costume. Sort of like when he jumped the shark. (google it)
So, with all of us dressed to "scare"(?), mom loaded us into the car and away we went around our little village to terrify the locals.
Each stop garnered us a special treat. There were always the houses that gave us crap treats. You know, popcorn balls, apples, bit o'honey, peanut butter kisses (ugh, the kind that were carmelized peanut butter on the outside with the chunk of peanut butter inside. *gag*) and the typical dimes. We generally discarded of those little "treats" in the trash and gave mom the loose change.
Sometimes, we would get a bit overzealous on our quest for sugar and go running across a yard in the dark unaware of hidden dangers. For example, I was going to one door when "Fonzie" went running by me and tripped over a sewer pipe. Needless to say, "Fonzie was not very graceful". She went flying thru the air, the painted Fonzie smile on her face never wavering, and landed with a thud on her stomach. She laid there for a minute while Auntie picked her up and dusted her off and told her "I said to stop running and watch where you were going!" all the while this look of amusement on her face. I think she thought the smiling Fonzie face-plant was just as funny as I did. I mean, seriously! How hilarious would it be to see a snowsuited Fonzie in his plastic vest that said "AAAAYYYY!" on the lapel flying thru the air with a big ole grin on his face?
I remember coming to this one house that had a very narrow stairway. Big Sister and Snow White went ahead of us younger ones because they were "older" than us. Typical.
Well, apparently Fonzie and the rest didn't feel like they had to wait for their next sugar high and they started running up the stairway pushing me in front of them. I swear my chuckie clad feet never touched the steps at all. It was like a sugar induced mosh pit for costumed freakish looking midgets. I remember Big Sister and Snow White giving me this look of utter terror as the crowd rushed toward them, Princess Leia being carried in the front.
There was no where to go but down. Like the parting of the Red Sea, Big Sister and Snow White toppled over the side of the stairway. Big sister got caught in the arborvitae on the left side of the cement steps, while Snow White went completely thru and landed on the ground below.WHUMP!
I got smashed against the screen door while Mom tried to calm the havoc surrounding the incident. She rescued Big Sister who clung like a vine to the shrub and the side of the brick house. Big Sister was crying because she got quite a few scratches and pokes. This caused her freckles to run so now she looked like she had been out in the mud all day.
The main thing that struck me as hilarious and to this day I cannot think of the incident without laughing so hard until I cry was poor Snow White. I remember looking down at her from the stoop, she was lying on the ground like she had just been trampled by a herd of cows (which in essence is sort of what happened), she looked up at me and I absolutely lost it.
Snow White was smiling at me. The mask she had on never moved from the spot on her face. You could see her eyes shining with tears behind the gaping eye holes and hear her crying, but for the smile on the mask I couldn't see past that. I almost cried from laughter.
Worst part? Mom looked at me, trying to scold me, but her eyes were full of laughter and she was having a difficult time trying to contain her laughter. She gave up. She had to turn away after she helped Snow White off the ground.
Cruel? Heck no. It was funny! Probably not to Big Sister or Snow White, but I can still laugh about it.

The next year I was allowed to go to town and go trick-or-treating with Tanya. Awesome! I was gonna load up on candy until I went into a sugar induced coma and end up having my stomach pumped.
Well, close.
Tanya and I dressed up and headed out around 5 pm. It had to be dark because, HEY! What fun is trick-or-treating in the daylight? It was kind of a downer.
So, grabbing up our pillowcases we headed out the door. (Who needed plastic bags or pumpkins? They didn't hold the booty that a pillowcase could!) So, off we headed around the neighborhood. After an hour, we had to go home because our pillowcases were too heavy to carry around.
Once we got to her house, we dumped out candy out on her bed and started rifling thru our cache of goodies tossing all the crappy candy. (As previously stated above.)
Heck. It was only 630. We could trick-or-treat for another 2 and a half hours if we had a mind to. HHmmmmm... are you thinking what I am thinking?
COSTUME CHANGE!
Phase II: Clutching new pillowcases in our new costumes, we embarked upon the second part of our journey. Making sure we hit the elder gentleman's house down the street again because HE gave away full size Hershey Bars! Oh yes, they will be mine.
An hour later, we returned home again. It was only 745. I say, AGAIN!
Digging into her playclothes, we don yet another disguise and head to Phase III: Operation Hospital Stay.
By now it was very dark and many of the boys in the neighborhood were trying to jump out and frighten other kids who were out on their own. We weren't afraid because, it was her big brother and his friends. We knew where they were going to be sleeping later so we could shortsheet their beds if they tried anything.
We managed to get thru one last round before 9 o'clock when trick-or-treat ended and doggedly headed home to sort our booty. Three different pillowcases, three different costumes and candy enough to last us thru New Year's 1987. I would say it was a productive night and perseverance paid off. Or was it greed? You be the judge.