Small Town Halloween

In our small town, it’s a tradition that we never trick-or-treat on Halloween night. It’s always a night or two before.

 

This is more than okay with my pesky brother-in-law Tim, because it means he gets candy quicker.

Homeboy is a candy ADDICT.

Did I ever tell you about the time I was pregnant and had a dish of hard candy in my house because I craved hard candy during that entire pregnancy, and Tim discovered my candy bowl and HID it from me in my own house so he could be assured a steady supply whenever he visited?

True story.

 

We had a big crowd, and Marlboro Man drove us around in the back of his pickup.

We had a lot of ground to cover.

 

My punk-arse sister Betsy is visiting.

 

She dressed up my nephew Elliot…

 

Like a greaser.

 

And here’s something funny: lots of youngsters don’t even know what a greaser is anymore.

Do you?

Raise your hand if you’re familiar with the word greaser.

Doesn’t anyone read The Outsiders anymore? Has Harry Potter taken over everything?

 

I love trick-or-treating in our small town. It’s such a community-wide effort.

 

For example, the Church of the Nazarene was handing out hot dogs and Kool-Aid.

 

I call this photograph “Wiener on the Ground.” If you’d like a gallery-wrapped canvas limited edition print of this photo, please email me at wiener@thepioneerwoman.com and I’ll have it to you by Christmas.

 

I have to say, for a church environment, the crowd at Church of the Nazarene was pretty frightening. This guy actually wore freaky contact lenses!

Now that’s dedication.

 

This isn’t something you see every day.

Especially at the Church of the Nazarene.

 

And this mask…it’s one of the scariest ones I’ve seen.

 

*Shudder* He’s pointing at me.

Uh…Marlboro Man? Could you come here for a sec?

 

Now, I did find this surprising, and I risked being torn from limb to limb by asking this spike-skulled monster how long it took for his baby to be desensitized to such a gruesome mask. My kids, ranging in age from thirteen to six, took one look at this guy and ran right behind the church building.

The monster answered, “She liked it from the beginning. Doesn’t bother her at all.”

I interpreted that to mean either

a. This baby was born with some sense of acceptance for all creatures and types of people, and that she simply wasn’t programmed to be afraid of someone who looked different from her.

OR

b. My kids are total basket cases.

I’m going with a combination of the two.

 

THERE we go. This is much more up my alley.

Look at his sister in the background. I die.

 

Okay, after the hot dogs, we continued our trick-or-treating. Around that time, something happened. We heard a rumor.

It was a hilarious rumor, but one Marlboro Man and I decided was worth checking out.

We heard a rumor that the nursing home in town was having a spook house.

So we all loaded up in the back of the pickup and went down to check it out.

 

When we walked in–all twenty of us–we still weren’t sure if we’d done the right thing.

But then we discovered that it was true! The nursing home had organized a spook house. It was about twenty feet long, but it really packed a punch.

 

After we all went through the spook house, we discovered that the residents were handing out candy.

 

Nursing home directors across the nation, listen up: you must organize this next year.

 

It was an absolute treat…

 

In so many wonderful ways.

Then I got tears in my eyes because it made me miss Grandma Helen.

 

Then this clown walked by, gave me the stink-eye, and I really started crying.

 

In terms of the amount of ground we covered and the sheer diversity of activities–Nazarene hot dogs, wieners on the ground, ice-blue contact lenses, and the visit to the nursing home–this was definitely our favorite Halloween experience thus far.

 

And they all lived happily ever after.

 

Until after dark, when Marlboro Man returned us all to this rickety old house.

Bad things happened there. Scary things.

But I’ll have to tell you about that next time.

I’m still trying to stop shaking.

Love,
P-P-P-P-P-Pioneer Woman