Greetings Dear Reader,
As I prepare to celebrate Halloween with my beloved
Grandsons, I submit for your enjoyment and excerpt from Sheetrock
on the Road. Please note that this
is taken completely from the book without editing. I have included the footnotes for this chapter as well. If you like feel free to buy a copy at the
provided link.
I do not wish to paint a picture of her as favoring
my sister. She completed that
masterpiece years ago. For me, surviving
Halloween during my sister’s cute years was an act of careful strategizing and
planning. A chess game played out each
year of my young trick-or-treat life determined just how much of my hard-earned
booty I actually kept long enough to eat.
You see, for me, until I realized the spiritual aspect of All Hallows
Eve and All Saints Day, the purpose of Halloween had always been the candy. Acquiring and keeping candy meant
preparation, innovation, and careful execution.
Obstacles to this objective were plenteous and
treacherous. My adversary possessed
experience and cunning. Each year three
goals presented themselves with equal quantities of opportunity and
danger. How much of the candy intended
for delivery to those trick-or-treaters arriving at our door could I liberate
for myself? How much of my sister’s
candy could I liberate from her possession through persuasion, coercion, or outright
theft? How much of my own trick-or-treat
candy could I keep away from the black hole of the chocolate universe that was
my mother?
The candy purchased for trick-or-treaters was always
purchased two or three times. This
advanced my opportunity significantly.
The candy purchased to give away was always chocolate the first couple
of times. It went like this. About two weeks before Halloween[1],
whilst grocery shopping for bread and milk, my mother would spot the candy
display with specially packaged chocolates for trick-or-treaters. She would buy a bag for them and a bag for the
black hole. She always claimed that both
were for the trick-or-treaters but I knew better. Playing along with the delusion worked to my
advantage. The first candy acquisition
endeavor was a reconnaissance mission.
The objective, find the open bag my mother had stashed and pilfer enough
candy to give me the upper hand but not so much that she would think she had
not already eaten it.
Her hiding places were excellent. One year it was in a basket under two weeks’
worth of old newspapers. Fortunately, I
had two or three hours to search between my arrival home from school and hers
from work. She often sequestered the
candy in her room or in a closet. It was
always within easy reach for her and just out of mine. She also set traps. I became and expert at moving things and
putting them back and removing stepladder imprints from the carpet. Occasionally she would feel rather than
notice the depletion of her supply. Inquiries
were impossible, as they would reveal that she was eating the candy. Instead, she would relocate the candy.
Eventually she would hide and open the other bag and
the cycle renewed itself. I became an
expert at finding her stash and pilfering most of it. I never ate the pilfered candy. It had another purpose altogether.
The depletion of the original candy led to the
second or sometimes third trip to buy candy.
On occasions when I was present for the second purchase, I often
inquired as to the fate of the previously purchased chocolates. Answers included creative explanations such
as, “The news said there will be record trick-or-treaters this year.” She also used, “I gave the candy away to the
needy.” The best was when she would say
that she had lost it. How do you lose candy
when you are eating it every day?
Invariably my questions led to the ultimate answer, “Don’t bother me
right now, I am trying to concentrate.”
My second objective, liberating as much of my
sister’s candy as possible, began early in the Halloween season. I had power over her and I used it. I would get one of my Blue Horse®
tablets and begin a tally.[2] Every time my sister broke a rule, real or
imagined, I would write it down. The
deal was that she had to give me a piece of candy out of her bag for each infraction
and I would cross the infractions off her list.
It was easy for me to persuade mom to let me take little sister
trick-or-treating.[3] On the way home, she paid up in chocolate for
such crimes as petting the cat too long, yawing at lunchtime, and taking too
long for a wheedle-wee. After she paid
up it was time to stop her tears and invoke her undying gratitude. So as to not invoke suspicion from mother, I
would point out to my sister that I had a lot more candy than she did. I would then give her all the cinnamon hard
candy and butterscotch. It was years
before it occurred to her that she was being scammed. It is no wonder it took years for us to get
back to being nice to each other.
After trick-or-treating, it was time to accomplish
my final mission in securing that my gathered candy remained mine. The arrival home always posed the most danger
to my carefully administered plan. My
mother’s beliefs about Halloween were not at all equal to my worldview. I truly believed that it was a time to dress
funny, go out after dark, and get all the candy possible. She believed it was the national holiday for
all who would poison children. She also
viewed it as her sole duty to protect us from razor blades sequestered in
apples[4] and
dental destruction from candy.
In her mind, every piece of fruit required
inspection for jagged glass, needle marks, and razor blades. The person on our street who gave out fruit
for Halloween was Mrs. Bush. She ran the
local nursery school and was the kindest woman ever. She hired me to rake her yard, weed her
garden, and in November, wash the egg and rotten fruit off her front door. My mother’s fruit inspection was really a
ruse to begin pilfering my chocolate candy.
The dental angle was the second prong of her attack. She explained the reduction in the amount of
candy we were allowed to retain as her part in preserving our teeth. The fact that she took all the soft chewy
candy and left all the hard candy served to belie her actual agenda. This reminds me that the best candy on our
street was from Dr. Haywood, a dentist.
He passed out loads of good candy and his business card. He was a smart guy. Unfortunately, my mom used the business card
as a reinforcement of her arguments about the candy. This is where the third part of my plan
required expert execution.
The moment we arrived back at the house, I hurried
to the bathroom claiming an urgent need to widdly-wee. The dancing and jumping around really
helped. Above my mother’s protests I
took my candy bag with me. I knew that
she imagined every germ known to man would work its way into the candy in the
three minutes it took for me to accomplish my task. Her phobia fed my scheme. With the sound of the vent fan covering my
own sounds, I took the candy I had pilfered from my mother’s supply from its
hiding place under the sink. Quickly, to
avoid suspicion, I switched my good Halloween candy with the pilfered
candy. I would select a few of the
low-end good items to leave in my bag as a way to put mom off the scent of
something being amiss. I had to because
I think my mother timed my bathroom visits.
Stuffing the new candy under the cabinet behind the collection of basins
and buckets, I flushed the toilet, feigned washing my hands, and exited, candy
bag in tow.
After the required six-minute lecture on the danger
of food crossing the threshold into a germ-infested zone like the bathroom, the
candy inspection began. My mom pilfered
back all the chocolate I had stolen over the previous two weeks and a few
extras that I had garnered in my neighborhood rounds. Her explanation was that these were soft
candies and that anyone could have injected them with all kinds of dangerous
drugs and poisons. That she ate some as
she explained this assured me that she was either immune to poison or this was
a feint.
She took nothing from my sister giving my sister the
false feeling of superiority at not losing any of her haul. I acted out the proper level of insult and
protested just enough to seem sincere but no so much as to get me punished. Mom relegated the remaining candy to the
public bowl so that the entire household could share it. This meant that it was no longer mine and
that I needed permission, which I could not get, to eat it.
Later that night, after everyone else slept I crept
into the bathroom, quietly retrieved my hidden candy, and slipped back into my
bedroom. I indulged in a few miniature
candy bars and hid the rest in the back of my closet behind the toy box. Moderation would allow me to enjoy my stash
until Christmas. Halloween was a
success. Carefully planned tricks
garnered me a bountiful supply of treats.
Wishing you joy in the journey,
Aramis Thorn
Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer
who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home
owner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store.”
(͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
[1] In
those days, stores started selling Halloween stuff in mid-October. Now you can buy the non-perishable items in
August. I get catalogs for Halloween
stuff in the mail as early as June. My
wife, Avalon views Halloween as the pinnacle of holidays. She decorates in September, plans elaborate
macabre parties, and spreads ghoulish joy throughout the land. In order to sell more stuff, retailers jump
the gun on all holidays and the advertising begins earlier each year. I think that if we have to endure soul cake
day adds during the equinox that we should get extra paid time off from work
for both.
[2]
For the uninitiated, Blue Horse® writing tablets were those
available for sale at the school store each morning for a nickel. The school always ran out of them. I always bought extras to sell for a dime. I always sold lots of them. Fear entrepreneurial second graders.
[3]
Another way I increased my candy haul was by telling the neighbors that my mom
ate my candy when I got home. More often
than not this resulted in people giving me double candy and my mother getting
the evil eye from most of the neighborhood until Christmas.
[4]
Ok, I was unsure whether to mention this or not, but I will. Do not give kids apples and oranges and
donations to charity in their name for trick-or-treat. They will not eat the fruit. They will use it to con their younger
siblings out of good candy. If they do
not have younger siblings they will wait until it rots and throw it at your
house. If you give trick-or-treaters
little pieces of paper explaining how you have donated money to a charity in
their name for Halloween it gets worse.
They will go back to the people who gave them apples and oranges to get
extra. They will let it rot until it
really stinks, add some old eggs from last Easter, and pelt you, your house,
your car, and your children until you reek.
Buy some good candy and give it to the kids. It is for your own safety.
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