Nov 022008
 

At work Friday night, I had finally begun to come to terms with  missing trick-or-treating. “My son will probably call people assholes or something, so I guess I’m glad I won’t have to dive in any bushes,” I said to my boss Dave, sitting with him in Dispatch. He laughed and said, “Yeah, but that actually sounds like it would be funny.”

“I know, right?!” I enthusiastically agreed.

Around 6:00pm, Sharon – the biller scheduled to work with me – arrived with a bright pink treat bag. “What’s this? To dull the pain of having to work on Halloween?” I asked sarcastically. But then I did a quick visual sweep and saw that there was some good shit in there so I thanked her genuinely.

As we billed several trailers, Sharon casually asked me some questions about Chooch, like what he was dressing up as. And then she asked how long it took me  to get home from work.

“I don’t know, fifteen minutes,” I answered. And then, as if the skies above had parted, Sharon said, “You know, I got this covered. You should go and be with your son. My kids are too old for trick-or-treating, anyway, so I’m not missing anything.”

Scrambling to get all of my stuff together, I officially dubbed her my favorite co-worker. I barely paused long enough to tell my boss that Sharon had dismissed me so I could take my son out, and he said, “Whoa, girl, you look like you’re going to CRY!” My eyes really had welled up with tears of happiness, I won’t lie. I’m not always a cold-hearted asshole.

I made it home by seven and didn’t even change out of my heels. I ran the two blocks to where Henry said he and Chooch were and I was so happy to be there that the analness in me didn’t even kick into gear when I saw that half of Chooch’s green Frankenstein face paint had been rubbed off. Apparently, he started crying immediately after application and Henry was too frazzled to give a shit. If I had been there earlier, I would have made it look much better, maybe slapped a slab of decomposing flesh to his cheek, but (BUT!) I was just grateful to be there at all.

Chooch and I had practiced the art of proper Halloween candy transaction all day, but by the time he realized what was going on, he dropped all pretenses and just asked, “CANDY?” when doors would open. My favorite moment was when he forcefully closed a door on an elderly couple after getting candy dropped in his bag.

This year proved to be more successful than last year, when he would pause every three steps to lay down in the middle of the street. He very quickly caught on to the process and didn’t try to walk into people’s houses and stay a spell like last year. In fact, he was in such a rush to make it to the next house that if it wasn’t for one of us holding his hand, he’d have Slinkied down a fair share of steps.

In addition to the loaded pillow case that Henry wound up lugging, Chooch also managed to acquire a bag of pennies (yummy, although in Chooch’s case it probably IS yummy) and a dollar from some lady who made a point to say several times that she wasn’t giving out candy.

I had fun making loud comments as we would retreat from houses, such as, “Wow, he was hot AND voting for Obama” and Henry was getting bristled I think. Then I talked about my new work-crush a lot too and Henry was like “Go get him then.”

We were out for about an hour and probably only passed fifteen other trick-or-treaters the entire time. On average, it seemed that only one in five houses was keeping dentists in business. I bitched about that for awhile until I realized that we didn’t put out any candy either. OOPS. I hesitate to be generous anymore in this neighborhood though. One Halloween, some bitch in a motorized wheelchair stole my entire bowl of candy.

Afterward, we stuffed Frankenchooch in the car and took him to see my grandma, who’s been in a nursing home for the past two weeks. It’s supposed to be temporary while she gets physical therapy, but I’m ever suspicious.

My aunt Sharon was there too, and had a bag of cookies and a car for Chooch (he probably would have been happier if every house gave him a car, to be honest). By this point, Chooch had sampled enough of his collection in the car to get a nice sugar buzz going. Add to that the large sugar granules he licked off the cookies at the nursing home, and we had one frenzied toddler. We only stayed there for twenty minutes or so, because my aunt gets so nervous that he’s going to break shit. I was glad to leave. That place was NOT agog with Halloween revelry.

Back at home, Chooch’s sugar level had increased significantly and he was now the owner of wild eyes and shrill outbursts. We let him crash his tricycle into the wall several times before he crashed himself  in his crib. The rest of the weekend has been full of demonic bellowing for CANDY! CANDY! Mostly by me.

  14 Responses to “Candy, children’s crack”

  1. I love the costume! And yay for your co-worker!

  2. most precious frankenstein ever

    and seriously: WHAT is your aunt’s deal?
    please tell me her story sometime!

    • I will totally tell you her story! She is unbelievable. I’d post it, but I know my mom reads this occasionally and I don’t want her to show Sharon in a fit of vindiction! So I will email you soonly!

  3. aw… chooch is the cutest frankenstein ever!!!
    no wonder he came away with such a nice load of treats.

    i’m so glad you got to be there. <3333

  4. “Chooch and I had practiced the art of proper Halloween candy transaction all day, but by the time he realized what was going on, he dropped all pretenses and just asked, “CANDY?” when doors would open. My favorite moment was when he forcefully closed a door on an elderly couple after getting candy dropped in his bag.”

    *cracking the hell up* That’s great.

    How awesome of Sharon!!!

  5. I’m glad you were able to be there for it; Sharon is very awesome. He looks adorable!

    We had several young ones come this year and try to come in the house. I wonder why they do that.

    • I don’t know, kids are much braver than they ought to be, that’s for sure. Riley was good about not barging inside people’s homes this year, but it got a little hairy when he spotted a cat that looked like Marcy and tried to push his way inside to terrorize it.

  6. Oh God. Cute fucking kid. Now, I almost want children.

    You will not be happy until my wallet is completely emptied, will you little miss?

  7. That is the awesomest Frankenstein costume ever. I always got stuck with a white sheet with two holes in it or a paper mask.

    Berryvox´s last blog post..Summer 2008 Bicycle Tour – July 1, 2008

  8. Im so slow, I only just realized that this wasnt showing up in my feed so pardon the late comment.

    He is SO adorable.

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