The worst Halloween

Happy Halloween!

Today has always been one of my favorite holidays. What kid does not like Halloween? I've never met one who didn't, not sure I'd want to. I recently gave my Mom a hard time about the year she completely ruined my Halloween. I think I must have been in 3rd or 4th grade..still very much into the whole trick-or-treating thing, but old enough that we didn't have to be accompanied by a parent. I don't think they ever understood how much mileage we got each Halloween even though we brought home pillowcases bursting with candy. The best part though, was running around at night (even a school night!) with no parents. A kid's dream!

So this particular year, my Mom helped transform me into the bride of Frankenstein, taken from a cool halloween makeup book. Cool costume, check. Biggest plastic pumpkin that could easily hold half my weight in candy, check. Amped friends ready to hit it hard, check. Let the fun begin!

Then, my Mom told me there would be a little detour. It seems that a neighbor girl's Mom had convinced her to make me go to the haunted house at the fairgrounds with the girl. I loved haunted houses, but you always-ALWAYS-do them in the days leading up to October 31, never the night of! It didn't help that this girl wasn't my friend, the only reason I knew her was because she followed my brother around school and the park telling everyone she was going to marry him. That and she had a strange habit of eating butter and chapstick like it was candy.

I don't know why I was chosen to go with her or how my brother, who was in her grade, got to skip it and go trick-or-treat with his friends. But that is what happened and I was devastated. My Mom promised I could go trick-or-treat afterwards and hopefully find my friends. With that, I'm dropped off at the haunted house. We wait in line and walk through it-it's a pretty good haunted house-and as we exit, she starts to panic. Somehow, she lost her witch hat while we were in the house. Her hat, by the way, was poorly made with black construction paper. The green paper band had been waving in the air because the tape wasn't sticking very well, and basically the thing was on the verge of falling apart before we set foot in there.

She bangs on the exit door on the verge of tears and begs the attendent to let her back in to find it. The guy says "no" and pushes us out of the way to keep the flow of people moving. She starts to cry. I feel bad for her, but impatient because it is time to go trick-or-treating and the hat was paper!

After a few more tears, I finally convince her that we needed to go back to the front because our ride is waiting for us. Still crying about the hat, she follows me to the front where we wait for one of our mothers to pick us up. And wait. Apparently, they got their wires crossed and each assumed the other had pickup duty and we sat there for a very, very long time. By this time, older kids are showing up, many of them drunk and amused by the crying blonde girl (who no longer resembled a witch) with the thick glasses and the angry little bride of Frankenstein sitting on the curb.

A couple of guys approached us and one ripped my big pumpkin out of my hands. Quickly realizing there was no candy in it for him to steal, he threw it at my head as hard as he could. His friends (and several people in the line that was snaking by us) laughed. The witch continued crying. I fumed.

By the time my Mom came to get us, I wanted blood. Her blood. It was so late, my brother was already home admiring his take. I was allowed to trick-or-treat at the one house on the block besides ours that still had their porch light on. The candy at our house had been wiped out, so the next day, my Mom gave the leftovers from a friend's house which was about 15 mini Three Musketeers. Brutal! I was so upset. It was truly the worst Halloween ever!

I sure had fun giving my Mom a hard time about it a few weeks ago. We were howling. She had also dressed up as the bride of Frankenstein, and the image of us in her car on the way home, me a smaller version of her with my arms folded across my chest overcome with pure rage directed at her, interrupted by the girl still crying about her paper hat....