Bumped In The Night!

"Shell Out, Shell Out - the witches are out."

They are also alive and well and living in Bradford, Ontario.

Today I consider myself to be more bitch than witch, because I know better. While trying to think of something witty and clever in keeping with the season, I realize that somewhere along the line I have traded my festive witchiness for bitchiness. Having said this, I decided to try and find out where I left the ghostess-with-the-mostess.

I used to love Halloween! Other than Christmas, which was a bit of a wait-and-see affair, at least I was a willing participant with some input in the costume department. Halloween was one of those calendar events where nobody threatened you with being good, or else! (Or else what? The presents have been in the bedroom closet for two months.) No going to bed early, no snow to contend with and being scary and scared was what it was all about. It was almost expected that you had to have at least one trick up the sleeve you were dragging on the ground or else what was the point? Besides the free eats. After all, there were houses to egg, pumpkins to smash and windows to soap. It was the one night of the year you could let loose and nobody gave a rat's ass.

That was before I saw the light, or rather praying for either the last kid to traipse up the porch stairs or my pail of overpriced, overprocessed and overwrapped treats gave out. Today I can't wait to douse the porchlight and lock 'er up for the night. To close my curtains and 'pretend'  I wasn't at home.  This coming from the kid who lived for those Hammer Films reruns on late night TV. The first turning leaf of fall meant scanning the weekly TV Guide for Charlie Brown and his Great Pumpkin. Long before the first B-B-Bat or marshmallow broom hit the stores (whatever happened to those anyway?) I could be found at my mother's Singer sewing machine with  her scrap bag beside me trying to create something original and stunning for the school costume competition.

My parents tried to weigh in on this every year. One year my dad got his way, dressed me up in one of his old hockey jerseys and toted me around the block. He insisted on lots of red food colouring around my eyes and nose because, as a former hockey player, his only kid, who was unfortunately a girl, had to hit the road as a goalie that year.  I was not impressed. Only a year earlier it was my mother who dressed me up as a leprachuan and doused me with - you guessed it - GREEN food colouring. Much more suitable for St. Paddy's day than Halloween, but I walked away with the kinder prize for best costume. Then I was finally old enough to travel the darkened streets of Oshawa with my friends like packs of wolves, our pillow cases bulging with sugary booty. I got even. Enough with the cutesy shit! My costumes were ghoulish, bordering on psychotic and way ahead of their time. Those were the days when I had a figure like Morticia Addams and could pull off black without it being sexist. My ghosts rattled real chains. My skeleton's bones came from the butcher, were boiled for hours then shellaced. My mother would shake her head and plead with me to be a clown or a princess, or wear my angel costume from the previous year's Christmas play. Nothing doing - let that be a lesson to you parents - there is such a thing as too cute!

Of course, every little boil and ghoul has to grow up. Usually when they discover the opposite sex. In my case, it was an older boy who played hockey in a league my dad coached. I think I remember the moment it happened. It went something like this: (handsome God-like boy comes to my dad's house and catches me trying on costume and comments) "Dressing up for trick-or-treat...awe, isn't that cute!"  There was that cute word again. Came back to bite me in the ass. That was the moment I gave up costuming for bra-stuffing and never packed a pillow case again.

The years rolled by. I found myself escorting my godchildren up and down the streets of Oshawa in their home made costumes. By this time, the merchandisers had started hauling out the plastic pumpkins at the end of July, the way they roll out the Christmas decorations at the end of September. It's shoved at you for months until you're just so sick of it that you want it to be over. I realized the thrill was gone when I found myself answering the door and staring UP at the trick-or-treaters. Home alone and the stranger on the porch is dressed like Jason and is the size of Tebow - handing out the snacks becomes more of survival technique than active participation. Then they vault off my porch, run across my grass and jump my fence. Must be all that sugar. I look down my street and see police cars patrolling, the mother of the tot toddling up the driveway in his Darth Vader outfit is concerned about preservatives. I get a dirty look if I don't offer a nut/gluten/sugar/something-else/free option. Trust me, it just wasn't like that in the good old days.

It is any wonder why I can't wait to unplug my plastic pumpkin and shoo the buggers back down the driveway - from which I have to move out two cars every year so the little darlings can get to the door.

Tonight will be no different. In the wake of having to secure the cats in the bedroom, eat an early supper (which I hate!) dig out the batteries for the flashing skull and try to find an extension cord long enough for the electric pumpkin, I will bitch and grumble. I am also aware that due to hurricane Sandy, more rain is forecast and there is a strong possibility that Halloween may become Hallo-wasn't. 

And in some way, the part of me who laboured for weeks over the ragged, red lace neckline of my Anne Boleyn costume will be a little sad.