Trick-or-Treating Lessons

This post is not spiritually uplifting like my other ones, but in the spirit of the holiday I had to post about Halloween.  Halloween is my favorite holiday.  Well, it ties with Christmas.  I feel bad having Halloween be my #1 holiday and Christmas my #2 since Christmas is a Christian holiday and Halloween is a Pagan holiday and I am Christian….  Oh well.  Halloween is my favorite holiday!  There.  I said it.  Anyway, I think part of why is because my birthday is in October, and until I was 12 all of my birthday parties were costume parties. J

So as I went Trick-or-Treating over the years I have learned some pretty funny and interesting lessons:

1. Do NOT go Trick-or-Treating in July.  When I was 4 or 5 years old I did not want to wait until October to go Trick-or-Treating.  So a few times during the same summer I put on one of my dress-ups, grabbed a bucket and went trick-or-treating without telling my parents.  We lived in an apartment complex in Orem at this point in my life, so there were several people living close together that I could visit!  I remember that some people were nice and gave me candy, others told me kindly to come back in October and they would have some candy for me, and one yelled at me to leave and not come back again.  When my parents found out they were not very happy with me.  They took me to every apartment that I went to and made me give their candy back and apologize for going trick-or-treating “when I wasn’t supposed to.”  I was crying the whole time.  I remember that all of them forgave me.

2. If there is a house that gives out King Size bars, go there first!  The years that we did not make it before that house ran out of candy were very devastating.  We always went there first and then did our traditional route.

3. Do NOT ditch your friends.  One year too many of us decided to go Trick-or-Treating in one group.  Because there were so many of us we wasted so much time running around skipping houses so that we could go to all of our parents’ and some grandparents’ houses.  So at one point, myself and three others, ran away from the rest of the group and finished our trick-or-treating without skipping any houses.  Later that night, when I was already home, the rest of the group showed up at my parents house to ask me why I ditched them.  I told them why and they left.  The next day at school was pretty awful.  I really should have stuck the night out, learned my lesson and go trick-or-treating in a smaller group the next year.

4.  Before calling the police about a prank, try to find out as much information as possible.  One year a guy in a mask jumped out from behind a fence with a fake chainsaw (we did not know that it was fake at the time), causing my brother to fall down and scrape his knee.  The guy jumped in a car that drove away.  He was still quite young and was too hurt and upset to finish trick-or-treating – we had barely just started!  So we took my brother home and told my mom what happened.  We were able to describe the car and she called the police.  My friends and I went back out to finish trick-or-treating and I promised my brother that he could have half my candy.  We ran into some other friends and told them what happened, and they told us who the masked guy was, and it just so happens that we knew him and his house happened to be on our route.  So when his mom answered the door we told her what happened.  The next part of the story is from my friend’s point of view who was in another group.  So my friend was trick-or-treating with this guy’s younger sisters.  All of a sudden their mom’s van came screeching next to them, the doors opened and she yelled at all of them to get in the van.  Once they were inside she started driving and told them what happened and that they had to find their brother and hide his car in their aunt’s garage.  The next Sunday at Church they guy apologized to my brother.  Now my friend – who was in the other group – and I talk about this story we just laugh and laugh and laugh.

 5. The rich neighborhoods do not give out better candy.  My last Halloween trick-or-treating I wasted time driving around with my friends going to the rich neighborhoods in Provo.  I got the same kind of candy as I would have in my own neighborhood.  In fact, I got less because: 1) we wasted time driving, and 2) those houses are BIGGER which means LESS of them on a street which means LESS candy!

So those are the five Trick-or-Treating lessons that I have learned over my life so far.  I hope all of you have a Happy Halloween tomorrow!  (Or today, if you are reading this on the 31^st.)  Be safe if you are leaving your house, and be nice if you are the one handing out candy. J

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!