Never Take Candy from Strangers...Except on Halloween

I am going to knock on your door. I will be dressed as Charles Dickens while also wearing a mask. I will hold a satchel in your face. I will offer a threat, meant to be carried out if you don't meet my demands. You will comply with my demands and I will leave.

It is called robbing your house.

It is also called Halloween.

And it is awesome.

As a child, I loved Halloween for a myriad of reasons, almost too many to count, but one of the best parts by far was wearing my costume to school. Halloween was a big deal at Mountain Avenue Elementary School. There was always a carnival the Saturday before the holiday which included fun games and prizes and Korean BBQ. Then on Halloween itself you would wear your costume to school and this was always my favorite part because my mother is an awesome sewer and I thought I always had really cool costumes. My costumes included A baseball player, A naval officer, a police man, a lion, and a scarecrow. And it was always awesome because we got out of class in order to participate in the school wide costume parade in which everyone walked around the playground in their costumes. It sounds less exciting now, but for a 7 year old it was friggen the best.

Number one part of Halloween though, trick or treating aka free candy aka a child's dream aka a diabetic's nightmare.

I never let myself get visibly excited for trick or treating but on the inside I was fricken excited. Once when I was 8, I went trick or treating as usual with my father, Floyd.

We were making the rounds when we got to one ladies house, who when she answered the door explained that a group of boys had just grabbed her entire bowl of candy and run away. Upon hearing this, my father ceased being Floyd and became Floyd Pope Walters III. With a firm "Follow me son" he walked back down the pathway and up the sidewalk. My mind was racing as to what was about to happen, all I knew is that this man in front of me was very determined and as we came up to a group of boys sitting on a lawn with an empty candy bowl it dawned on me.

I was about to witness something terrible.

I froze in my tracks as Floyd Pope Walters III marched right up to the young thieves. He grabbed the empty candy bowl. I held my breath. The four 11-13 year olds looked at my father with wary gazes.

And then, with no warning, my father spoke. He spoke in way I had never heard before and haven't heard since.

"Did you boys steal that woman's candy?" he asked in the most terrifying way I have ever heard a question be asked.

"N-no s-she gave it to us!" Replied the stupid, stupid boy.

Floyd wasn't having any of it.

In a scene straight out of the Andy Griffith Show he picked up the empty candy bowl and said with sheer anger, disappointment and fatherly instinct, "You boys better straighten up! You know better than this! You are going to go and apologize to that nice woman right now!"

And they did. And I just stood there, awestruck. I didn't feel much like trick or treating after that. At first I was embarrassed, but then as I have gotten older I realize that those punks got less than what they deserved. (which is a severe smacking).

It makes me yearn for the day when I can invoke angry wisdom on the youth of America. But it also makes me yearn for the day when I can take my own child trick or treating and use it as an opportunity to teach them a valuable life lesson by scaring the crap out of them.

Happy Halloween.