night of the living dead?

Over the course of the last five years we have noticed some changes to the way Halloween is celebrated (?) down here in Suthren Country. Instead of cute kids wearing homemade costumes, carrying kitchey plastic orange pumpkins, toddling along the sidewalk holding hands with each other or with a parent, we now see multitudes of teenagers, some with just a token smear of makeup on their face, but overwhelmingly without costume, who emerge locust-like from the pickup trucks and flatbed trailers that line up from one end of our street to the other, emergency flashers blazing, high-decibel bass notes thumping competitively.

The way-too-old-to-be-out-there-doing-that visitors stampede the porch, pushing roughly and often literally falling all over each other in their zeal to be first. Apparently having never heard much less uttered the phrase ‘trick or treat’ they shove either a ratty pillowcase or a dirty well-used plastic grocery store bag in my face and rudely grunt an unintelligible demand. (I have also noticed their vocabularies are totally bereft of the words ‘thank you.’)

Last year, due to the high number of walking dead, I ran out of candy just shy of the official end time, and so spent the last few minutes dispensing nickels, which by the way some sneeringly declined to accept. (Who in their right mind turns down money?) At the conclusion of the hours posted for this city I gratefully came inside, locked up, set the alarm, and turned off the front porch light. But despite the fact that there were no lamps on anywhere in the house, at ten pm we were still hearing people beating on our door, sometimes with so much force that the windows shook.

I came out the next morning to find all my decorations either broken or missing entirely, a swath of empty candy wrappers adorning the street, sidewalk, and yards, like so much flotsam after a hurricane.

I've had enough. This year I’m skipping it all together. Because the darlings tend to walk between a parked car and the garage as they rush from one residence to the next, I have told Jim to pull up as close to the house as possible when he comes home from work on Thursday. As of noon, my car will be in the garage, all my fall decorations will be down, with all the little pretty chotchkies I normally keep all year on my porch and in the yard stored for safekeeping. Way before the appointed hour we will barricade ourselves in the bedroom, hope for the best, and pray we survive unscathed.

So, my friends, say goodbye to Mister Scarecrow; his days of hanging on my door are numbered. Two, to be exact.