The Loot

Brian and Sean got more candy than they could even carry on Halloween. They each filled a plastic orange pumpkin twice. Excuse me, jack-o-lantern. I don't know how many times I have been corrected by Brian Jr. He says - "Jack-o-lanterns have faces, pumpkins do not." Technically I guess that he is right but isn't a jack-o-lantern still a pumpkin? But, I guess a pumpkin is not really a jack-o-lantern. Hmmm.

It reminds me of those "fun" word problems in school. If Ann is taller than Jenny. And Jenny is taller than Sue. Is Ann taller than Sue? Sure she is - did I stump you? I also loved the ones where you had a ton of info to mark down in charts. Bill wears blue but not red. Tom wears red but not yellow. Jim will not wear sneakers but will wear boots. Fred and Joe will only wear boots. Who wears yellow sneakers! Okay so I don't think there is an answer to that one - but you know what I mean!

Back to the candy. The boys got the usual M&Ms, Snickers, lolli-pops, Hershey bars, Skittles, etc. Then as I was taking all the good stuff to hide for myself, I mean looking it over carefully to make sure it was safe, I noticed something unusual. There nestled among the 3-Musketeers and Milkyways was a big bar. I picked it up and looked at it carefully. It said Kellogg's Special K Protein Meal bar - chocolate peanut butter with 10g of protein! Yummy! So who forgot to buy candy and started handing out things from the pantry? Go ahead, fess up! I wish I had seen which house so we could just skip it next year! I guess it is better than giving the kids a dime!

Do you remember as a kid getting nickels and dimes? That is when you could actually buy something with thirty cents! Now it won't even get you half way to a candy bar - I think even video games are fifty cents and a dollar - no more quarter games! I also got apples and popcorn and home-made cookies and other stuff I would never let my kids eat in this day and age! But the winner of worst trick-or-treat hand out had to be a few years ago.

I think Halloween was on a Sunday - our town decided to make trick-or-treating on Monday but a neighboring town had it on Sunday. My brother and Brian's sister live there so we thought we would give the kids the ultimate Halloween - two days of trick-or-treating. Otherwise known as more free candy for Mom and Dad! I figured they would talk about it for years - come to find they don't even remember it! I think Brian was three and Sean was a baby - How dare they not remember the best Halloween ever!

Back to the worst treat. There was the nicest little old lady on her front porch. She was chatting with us and making a big fuss over all the kids and their costumes. Then she said to wait a minute and she went in her house. The kids walked up onto her porch and waited. She came out with dimes and put a few in each bag or pumpkin. Then she reached over to a table and handed each kid a ceramic nick-knack. I am totally serious!

The kids came down to us and we saw what they had. We immediately walked them back to the porch and told them to give them back to the nice lady. As you can probably guess, she said they were for the kids and refused to take them back. Have you ever tried to argue with a senior citizen? - you lost the argument before it even started.

So the kids went home with various nick-knacks. I think it was a cow with a hole in it's back to put a plant. We also got some sort of snowman thing. I kept them for a while but I am not sure where they are now. It was very strange, to me anyway, to hand these out and on top of that - they were breakable! You give that to a three year old!?!

the cow planter looked something like this

snowman was something like this

On the other side - this year they hit about three or four houses that gave out full size candy bars! When I was little these were the ones we ran around telling all our friends about! Then when we got older we tried to sneak out of the house in a different costumes to "hit" the good houses again! I wonder if my Mom ever knew - I guess she does now!

It was a good year the boys really had fun! The weather was just about perfect and no one got injured. What more can you ask for - except two days of trick-or-treating! Oh - the strangest costume - a moose witch! Never, ever have I seen that before. A girl had on a moose head and the rest of her was dressed as a witch. I asked her who she was and she matter-of-factly replied, "A moose witch!" Okay then...original anyway.