Thumper Thinks Out Loud

Booooooo Part Two

3rd grader joke:
Why couldn’t the witch have a baby?
Her boyfriend had a hollow weenie!

We tend to think too much: like trying to figure out why we had Halloween last night instead of tonight. Safety issues made sense, so we went with that. Yet on the noon news yesterday the anchors were talking about it, and the real reason surfaced: Halloween on a Friday night interfered with high school football playoffs.

Now, my first thought was “so freaking what?” (ok, freaking was not the word I thinked up…) But then I realized that if I had a 16 year old with what might be a once in a lifetime chance to play in a game that could lead to a state championship, and the chance to stay home and hand out candy … well, I wouldn’t be handing out candy. And HS Football is huge here, so I imagine a lot of people wouldn’t stay home. Having it the night before gave everyone a chance at some fun.

We didn’t get quite as many kids last night as we did last year (and thusly, we have lots of leftover candy) but it was still fun. We sat out with the neighbors and talked, and had fun with the little ones. The older kids were obviously pros—they know how to get to as many houses as possible in the 2 hours allotted to trick or treat on base—and the littlest of the kids had no idea what was going on. A few of the toddler aged kids didn’t quite grasp the idea—they kept trying to give us candy. We’d drop a couple of Crunch bars into their bag, and they’d reach in for something else to hand to one of us.

There were no screamers this year, no one terrified by being out there, but a few of the kids looked dazed and stoned, either tired from walking around or tired because it was close to bedtime already. And there were some awesome costumes (poor kids had warm costumes, so of course this year the temps were in the mid-60s), but the one I laughed at the most: a 12-13 year old boy dressed in a pink evening gown and blonde wig. This kid had guts.

And the surprise of the evening—some kids are still out there collecting for UNICEF. I haven’t seen that in years.

So now I’m $5 poorer, but I have lots of Crunch Bars left over!
Lunch!