What's Up With That?

by Tom Kuzeja - October 31, 1999

What's Up With That?

Halloweenie

I haven't written for awhile because I have been supremely busy bitching and moaning about just about everything which when you think about it, leaves little time for anything else. So I'm gonna try a positive attitude purely to see if that buys me any time. Then maybe I'll revert back to the complainer for awhile.

I still haven't finalized my Trick or Treat costume for this evening. It's a toss up between going as The Y2K Bug, Existential Imperialism as symbolized by the expansion of tariffs against the Spanish spice trading fleets of the 1500's, a hobo, and a Victoria's Secret Miracle Bra. Mind you, I'm not actually going out of the house; I have candy duty and will be standing by with treats as well as quarters for donations to Unicef, the American Dental Association, the American Cancer Society, Friends for Tad and Buffy's Third Mercedes Sport Utility Vehicle Fund and the Save William Shatner Association.

In the old days, choosing a costume would have been an easy decision. Throw on some old clothes, put some shoe polish smudges on your face, grab a pillow case and head out to Halloween Hobo heaven. Pretty standard, really. It was either that or dressing like a woman (for the boys) or a princess (for the girls). There would be the occasional vampire and pirate, but the hobo and the princess were pretty popular. The old cheesy plastic mask costumes started out as popular until kids began wandering out into traffic since you couldn't see anything through those microscopic slits in the masks.

Also, in my day, we actually said "Trick or Treat!" at a fairly audible level. Kids these days come up in their fancy high tech costumes with their GPS/anti-abduction devices flashing, their Y2K Geiger counters humming, and their two way family transmitters blasting... it's difficult to hear them say anything. Not that they ever attempt to say anything. Kids these days!

My rule is, if you don't say trick or treat, then I publicly humiliate you. That's right. I usually have a PA system and a microphone set up and I interview the nasty kids. Usually I'll say something to them like "Hey you kids... in my day we said 'Trick or Treat'" which is really humiliating to hear if you're a kid who doesn't say 'Trick of Treat!'. They're thinking "Man, don't point that out!" Especially not with a PA system.

Then I usually grab the kid's two way family transmitter and squawk something into it like "Mommy! Come get me! I wet my pants!" That's right, when you come to my door you had better say "Trick or Treat!" or you get humiliated, squawked at and candy thrown at you. Hey, I never deny the candy! I just whip it at you if you don't say the damn "Trick or Treat!" phrase. C'mon! It's like you just expect me to give you candy for nothing because you rang my doorbell. Sorry! I want to hear "Trick or Treat!" otherwise I'm reliving my glory days when I was a pitcher in high school and I'm gonna whip a Snickers screwball high and tight right at your melon. Then I'm gonna pick you up off the ground, squawk into your damn radio, tell your Sport Ute driving, digital cell phone carrying, I don't care about a water ban watering mama to come drag your sorry butt off my lawn. That's humiliation for you! Just like the old days!

It's even worse when it comes from some guy dressed like a Victoria's Secret Miracle Bra!

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