Halloween

When I was a kid the rule in our house was, the last year for trick-or-treating was sixth grade, when we were about 12 years old.  I guess the thought of teenage trick-or-treaters was just too much.  I hated that rule, as I still wanted to go around and scoop up as much candy as I could, but rules were rules.  Thinking this was a universal law, I tried to impose the same rule on my son.  He would have none of that.  He wasn’t ready to let this part of his childhood go and since I fully understood the anguish, I extended it a year.

This year though, he’s 14 and I was certain too old for such a thing, but he begged and pleaded and even made a proposal that was hard to refuse.  He wanted to do a “reverse” trick-or-treating, where he handed out candy, too.

Kaleb’s big idea was to go as “Smartie Pants.”  He taped rolls of Smarties candies to his pants, donned his white shirt and tie with the periodic table of elements on it, and put a large book under his arm, which happened to be hollow and a great place to stash his candy.  He filled his pockets with rolls of Smarties and went around town knocking on doors.  After he got his treat, he asked the resident if they would like to answer a question, and if they got it right, he’d give them a roll of Smarties.  He let them pick their subject matter, as long as it was academic.  Sports are not his thing.

Ya gotta love a small town like LaConner on nights like Halloween.  I was sure he’d get the door slammed in his face, but to my surprise, most everyone played along.  If they got the answer wrong, he gave them another shot at it.  He wanted them to win the candy.  It was hysterical watching the interaction from afar, seeing how hard people tried to figure out the square root of 169 or which year the First Continental Congress met.  One guy asked for a physics question, but then apparently got it wrong just to see if Kaleb really knew what the correct answer was.  He did.  I haven’t laughed so much in a long time.

At several homes, spouses made their way to the door and joined in the challenge, as Kaleb was game to let everyone be a winner. 

At one home he received a sucker called a DumDum as his treat and when the couple at the next house couldn’t answer any of his questions, he gave it to them as a consolation prize. 

Kaleb’s already planning out a new strategy for next year along the same lines, but he said he thinks he might need more DumDums than Smarties and he wants to buy some Air Heads to give out to those who wouldn’t even try.  I’m thinking he just needs to savor the memory and not press his luck.