Trick or Treatment

We had the season’s first trick-or-treaters at the house yesterday. They seem to arrive earlier and earlier every year. The 31st of October is still over two weeks away but there they were at the door with their plastic masks and little hands held out demanding gratuities.

One of the begging children last night was a boy who seemed too old to be indulging in such an activity. At fourteen or fifteen years-old, he was perhaps the others’ pimp or evil gangmaster. He had elected to not wear any disguise and I was able to study his features carefully. His face looked like a slapped arse, as we say around these parts, and by the intense and threatening way he was staring at me, I immediately formed the opinion that he would more than likely go on to develop various unwholesome sexual proclivities in later life.

Why the peculiarly American trend of trick-or-treating has become such a popular one in this country is puzzling to me. There must of course be economic and commercial reasons for it to do so, but the actual customs and social traditions of Halloween appear lost or buried. This morning, I awoke having slept badly, as if my subconscious had been working overtime during the night, trying to solve this arresting conundrum.

One of the local newsagents has taken to selling big purple signs that homeowners can place in a conspicuous position on their property. In bold orange lettering they bear the legend, No Trick or Treat Here, Please. However, to display such a thing in one’s window is madness, surely: it invites extensive egg-throwing and the posting of dog excrement through one’s letterbox on a massive scale.

I have adopted the simple strategy of not answering the door when called upon to do so by these irritating junior nuisances but last night I was caught off guard by their premature arrival. I was, of course, more than able to improvise.

‘Trick or treat?’ one of them demanded.

‘Treat, please,’ I said.

‘What?’ came the bewildered reply.

‘I’ll have a treat, please.’ They looked at each other in utter confusion.

‘We haven’t got any. Sorry,’ the smallest of them said.

I think I heard him weeping as they trundled off down the road.

Tagged as: Annoyances, Halloween, Kids