There was a time in my life when I loved dressing up in some kind of get up for Halloween…..even if it was just a cheap Kmart skeleton shirt and a Groucho Marx with nose and glasses. This time in my life was when my life was in Houston and my then “roommate” and I lived in Montrose at the time. Now, Montrose was and is an interesting neighborhood. It’s located very close to downtown and was at one time THEE gay H-Town place to live and party. The gay clubs are still there, but most of the gays (couples and singles) moved out to the suburbs where they could have real gardens and their adopted Asian children could play in nice, big backyards. Lots of artsy types are in Montrose. So are Punkers, musicians, Goths. Wanna be everything’s. It was a culture soup.
Then the Yuppies moved in….then moved out and when I left Houston after 23 years, the millennials started calling Montrose home and changed the dynamic as much, if not more than the yuppies. As a neighbor, give me an impotent gay, yuppy, booger-eating, psychopath with ulcers, a major coke and crank problem, and massive daddy issues than a millennial any day. Why? That’s for another post.
Anyway, the first Halloween we lived in The ‘Trose, we went all out, but we decided against doling out candy. We went with more practical goodies, things that would last longer than candy: Halloween themed pencils, little noutebooks with monsters on them, bat whistles, even a small vampire comb with multiple fangs for teeth. It was funny. Well, I thought so.
But guess what? None of the little Super Mario’s or teenage reptile ninjas or princesses, ghosts or witches (or am I spelling that wrong?) wanted utilitarian Halloween things, they wanted candy and the little ingrates either refused the stuff altogether or took a few items and threw everything in the gutter mere feet from our home. Can you believe it? We were floored.
And not a single thank you. I think I donated the rest of the stuff to a school.
🕷👻🧟♂️ 🧛♂️ 🎃
Okay, well yeah…I’ll admit….maybe I should have known better and spent my money on candy, but Halloween was never a big deal to me. I love ghosts stories and paranormal nonsense, but Halloween and I just never connected,
In fact, as a kid, I only went trick or treating once. Once. This is the exact vintage Casper The Friendly Ghost costume I wore.
But it was a nightmare.
It was 1966 I think, and an early cold front blew in and my mother forced me to cover my Casper costume with a coat, mittens, a scarf and cap. Everything was covered up and you could barely see my white Casper mask. I looked like my costume was an albino dwarf. Plus, my very anal mother would only let us trick or treat at the homes of her good friends or people she knew “were clean”. WTF?!? So, I don’t remember getting much candy at all. All these factors from childhood to living in Montrose ruined me from Halloween.
Which brings me to tonight. Halloween 2019.
I live in a lovely, gated community in the Texas Hill Country. I don’t mean to brag but I merely include the fact it’s a rather exclusive neighborhood for perspective. There are children here, at least I see a school bus pass by my house if I happen to look out my window, but I never see kids outside. No bike riding, skateboarding…nada. Hell, I never see adults outside either. It is not a close knit neighborhood, which suits me fine, but not a neighborhood to people watch, either. People very much keep to themselves. Snobs. Just the way I like it. Not a Gladys Kravitz to be found for miles.
Every Halloween, I make sure all lights are out. My bedroom is in the back of the house and lights are on in there, but the rest of the house is like a bat cave. A real bat cave. Not like Adam West’s. I don’t turn on any lights, including outdoor security lights until 9:00PM, which is the unofficial shut off time for tricking and treating.
Now, no front porch light on, is an international sign of a home’s non -participation in any aspect of Halloween. It’s like a sign that reads:
I’ve lived here for three Halloweens and I’ve never been Trucked or Treated upon once. Not once.
But….
If the little hoodlums would have attempted a candy raid tonight, they would have gotten this audible foreshadowing of their lives had they deigned to touch the doorbell:
https://ring.com/share/6754142218244590796
Did I mention I HATE Halloween?????
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