What does all of this mean?
My wife is a Halloweenie. It is her thing, her thang. All-year round -- every day is Halloween. Mostly, I find it uber-cool to be married to an old-school goth (albeit a closet-goth for her roles as homemaker, librarian, and room parent). Occasionally, I feel the bats and cats and rats and skulls are all staring at me, trying to psych me out.
What does all of this mean?
In 1992, Halloween was my holiday. I was a graduate student at Southern Illinois University -- where Halloween was celebrated with much drinking and burning of cars.
In 1993, Halloween was our holiday. We were still in Carbondale. We were finalizing our wedding arrangements -- the Interfaith Center, the cake from Cristaudo's, the reception at Fiddler's (gone, but not forgotten), the honeymoon on Miami Beach. A week later, we were married on a snowy Saturday afternoon. A week after that, I was in the hospital for three days with Legionnaire's disease. A week after that, we were on Miami Beach for only fifteen minutes on only one day of our week-long honeymoon while the Legionnaire's disease kept me in bed (in the wrong sense for OUR HONEYMOON).
In 2008, Halloween was her holiday, and has been for years. Not that her version of Halloween is substantially different from my version of Halloween -- but, as far as I am concerned, the day is all hers. I love Halloween, but it's her thang.
I am the candyman.
(If you think that means I want to do something unspeakable to Virginia Madsen...um, well....)
It is my job to pass out candy to the kiddies every year. It is not as simple as it may seem:
- Who? Without even factoring in the weather, some years we get fewer than thirty kids, other years we have had over 150. My first thought is to just say no to the high-school kids with no costume and a used Wal-Mart bag; then, I think of starting November with a busted-out picture window. There are people who drive vans up to our house, let a dozen kids out on the side-street, have those kids trick-or-treat our front door, try to trick-or-treat our side door, then leave the neighborhood.
- What? Chocolate, that's what...and not motherfucking Tootsie Rolls either, you cheap bastard. If you are only giving out a piece or two per trick-or-treater, please please PLEASE make it all name-brand chocolate. If you give more candy than that, mix it up with non-chocolate. I know Skittles are just as expensive as Snickers, but to a nine-year-old Skittles are as much a filler-candy as Double Bubble...or Tootsie Rolls, you cheap bastard. Given the unpredictable number of trick-or-treaters we may have, we make sure there is enough chocolate for 200 really hungry kids.
- When? In broad daylight...nowadays. Check out my blog entry, "I think Barack Obama is avoiding me..." for more on daytime trick-or-treating.
- Where? My front door. I live on a corner. Every year, kids go to my front door, then go to my side door. For some reason, some kids only go to my side door. My house is a slab house of less than 1,100 square feet. My side door is in the breezeway connecting the house to the garage, but it is obvious to anyone close enough to the side door to ring the bell that this breezeway doubles as an ersatz junk-filled basement.
Also, I would have thought that the large obvious sign on the side door saying "Please use front door" might help. It gets a little harried trying to answer both doorbells at the same time -- my fat candy-snitching ass huffing and puffing back-and-forth through the kitchen. - Why? Just before my Druidic ancestor were ransacked by my Viking ancestors, they did something with an oak tree and Stonehenge I think, so now we give kids candy on Halloween. Hey, it's all I've got. That is at least as convincing as the story about the stepson of a Jewish carpenter who was horribly tortured to death in public, so now every year a rabbit hides hard-boiled eggs.
Nestlé Crunch CaramelThis is a newish variation on an old favorite. It's like a Nestlé Crunch Bar with a Cadbury Caramello on top of it. This is a great texture pairing that work against logic. Like thin-crust pizza with extra cheese, Nestlé Crunch Caramel pairs the crispiest of the crispy with the gooiest of the gooey. The Fun Size bars are not exact miniatures of the full-size bars: the Crunch Bar to Caramello proportions are different, better (I think) in the Fun Size.
2008 Favorite Post-Halloween Markdown Candy
3 Musketeers Mint
This is another newish variation on an old favorite. The whipped mint nougat dipped in dark chocolate is even better frozen and cracked like you might do to a Charleston Chew. Target was selling bags of 18 in their Halloween clearance for $1.14, while they were selling the same size bars with earlier expiration dates in the 8-bar packs for $1.29. Mint and dark chocolate sound pretty Christmas-y to me. WARNING: if you ever get heartburn at all, mint and dark chocolate together might just be your kryptonite.
Next Time: More hi-jinks, fifteen years of wedded bliss (not in a row), and more of the Fall Eating Season.
2 comments:
I can get on board with all of this except your disdain for Tootsie Rolls-- I love those things!
I might love the hard-to-find fruity ones even more. Oh, man do I want candy now. Why didn't my kids get any carmel Crunch bars for me to steal??
I have PTSD brought on by years of being pelted with Tootsie Rolls at the Good Neighbor Day Parade in Lansing, IL. I'll post about it after the next parade (in May) if my therapist allows.
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