NaBloPoMo Day 1: Dealing with the Absentee Trick or Treat Situation
On Halloween last year, we were at Wanda and Derek's for a coveted view of the Village Halloween Parade. Wanda & Derek live right on the parade route. It's so very civilized to sit in their massive bay window and watch the marching without having to mingle in the brouhaha on the sidewalk.
I say all this to say that last year we were not at our place in New Jersey on trick or treat night. But our porch light goes on automatically. So our house beckoned children near and far to our doorstep and then after they trekked the whole way up our front walk. PSYCH. No one home. Cue evil laughter.
In the corner of our front porch I had left a can full of garden tools. Little shovels and a hand-held rake apparatus and a weeder or two. One of the children took the tools out of the can and arranged them very passive aggressively on our doormat.
Sure I felt shitty about all the innocent tricker treaters who approached our domicile full of hope but ultimately wasted so many of their tiny little footsteps. I also felt a fear looming. It's called TRICK or treat after all. We dodged a bullet.
Wanda and Derek invited us over again this year. Of course we said yes. It's the only sound option.
So the day before yesterday, on the eve before Halloween, I invested at least 15 minutes in writing up a little sign that said "Please take one" and installing a plastic pumpkin on our porch with some candy in it. I wanted to get this taken care of in advance because I knew I was going to be EXTREMELY busy on Halloween during the day. I had back-to-back meetings and I needed to get into the office for something.
Then it started raining. I mean fucking pouring. Water went into my plastic pumpkin and my sign got soaked. Luckily I'd used sharpies otherwise there would have been streams of orange and black marker running down our porch steps.
Basically the whole effort was a #fail. Instead of the pre-work saving me time, I wound up in the kitchen toweling off chocolate bars and I put the sign in the microwave. To dry it off. It semi-worked.
Then I hunted all over for a glassine sleeve to put the sign in but of course when you need one, you cannot find the box of glassine sleeves that is definitely around somewhere because you didn't throw it out because who knows when you'll need a glassine sleeve?
Finally I gave up and put the sign in a zip lock. Then I recreated the same pumpkin scene again on the front porch but I had to wait until the afternoon when the monsoon ended.
We watched the children from our Ring doorbell from Wanda & Derek's.
All in all it ended well.
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| photo credit: Time Out NY |
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| Photo credit: Karen Ruben |
I say all this to say that last year we were not at our place in New Jersey on trick or treat night. But our porch light goes on automatically. So our house beckoned children near and far to our doorstep and then after they trekked the whole way up our front walk. PSYCH. No one home. Cue evil laughter.
In the corner of our front porch I had left a can full of garden tools. Little shovels and a hand-held rake apparatus and a weeder or two. One of the children took the tools out of the can and arranged them very passive aggressively on our doormat.
Sure I felt shitty about all the innocent tricker treaters who approached our domicile full of hope but ultimately wasted so many of their tiny little footsteps. I also felt a fear looming. It's called TRICK or treat after all. We dodged a bullet.
Wanda and Derek invited us over again this year. Of course we said yes. It's the only sound option.
So the day before yesterday, on the eve before Halloween, I invested at least 15 minutes in writing up a little sign that said "Please take one" and installing a plastic pumpkin on our porch with some candy in it. I wanted to get this taken care of in advance because I knew I was going to be EXTREMELY busy on Halloween during the day. I had back-to-back meetings and I needed to get into the office for something.
Then it started raining. I mean fucking pouring. Water went into my plastic pumpkin and my sign got soaked. Luckily I'd used sharpies otherwise there would have been streams of orange and black marker running down our porch steps.
Basically the whole effort was a #fail. Instead of the pre-work saving me time, I wound up in the kitchen toweling off chocolate bars and I put the sign in the microwave. To dry it off. It semi-worked.
Then I hunted all over for a glassine sleeve to put the sign in but of course when you need one, you cannot find the box of glassine sleeves that is definitely around somewhere because you didn't throw it out because who knows when you'll need a glassine sleeve?
Finally I gave up and put the sign in a zip lock. Then I recreated the same pumpkin scene again on the front porch but I had to wait until the afternoon when the monsoon ended.
We watched the children from our Ring doorbell from Wanda & Derek's.
All in all it ended well.
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