On the wrong trick

For the first two years in our house, we handed out Hallowe'en candy before heading out to parties, taking care to extinguish our lights and stash our pumpkins inside before we left. It never proved necessary--even though a good number of our trick-or-treaters didn't seem to think being middle-aged and having children of their own disqualified them from holding out a bag.

The first year, we were struck by the number of people who didn't come in costume, not just the aforementioned parents, but kids from high school on down. I mean, aren't you supposed to at least make an effort? I appreciate that not everyone can afford a costume--I hate to geez, but in the neighborhood I grew up in, most kids made their get-ups.

So far this year, we've had two trick-or-treaters with mustaches. I think the rule should be: If you're old enough to drive to the store to buy yourself some candy, get off my porch.

I've never quite hit on the correct number of pieces to give out. I usually err on the side of too much, but that bit me on the ass last year, when I had to fly down to the CVS and pay a pasha's ransom for the last bag of incredibly unpopular candy, turning off the lights, stashing the pumpkins and hiding by the window, scanning the horizon for vandals, when that ran out. This year I've been giving two pieces to the younger kids and three to the older ones. My neurosis about running out is exacerbated by my wife's carefree way of filching a piece from the basket as she walks by. "Will you please leave that alone?" I'll ask. "Oh, don't worry, there's plenty," she'll say.

Likewise, my Hallowe'en paranoia drives her crazy ("No one's egging the car. Sit down"). Again, where and when I grew up, trick-or-treating was for the younger kids. The older ones devoted themselves to vandalism. I never participated in a pumpkin-smashing or an egging, but I've TP'd a teacher's house or two and put shaving cream on the weird burnout guy on our block's car, till he ran out with no shirt on and chased us down the street shouting obscenities, which permanently cured me of my propensity toward property crimes.

So I guess it's karmic that I married a teacher. This year she thought it would be a nice touch to give out pencils along with candy. Then she skipped off to take our kid trick-or-treating, leaving me with a cloth dragon full of school supplies and a rapidly diminishing supply of Whoppers and Milk Duds.

The pencils have been met with bemusement for the most part. Every kid I've given one to has turned to the adult accompanying him or her and shouted, "He gave me a pencil!" Hoping not to look like a complete hippie wacko, I'd shout, "I gave you candy, too!" Sometimes their mothers said, "That's good!" in the same smiling-as-they-back-away tone I suspect they reserve for religious nuts who hand out Bibles.

I haven't given any pencils to the high school kids, because I'm scared they might egg my house in retaliation. After I gave candy to the last group of teenagers to bound up on our porch and pound on the door (does no one use doorbells anymore?), I heard one of them say to the others, "All that candy he's got in the bag and he only gives out three pieces?"

I suspect I will not be sleeping well tonight.