The Essays
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Halloween at my house was always exhausting, but the year I was 8 it was especially bad. Being the fourth of four girls, my Halloweens had degenerated to the point where my oldest sister Linda took Lois and me over by the school and forced us out of the car. Linda was driving age, way too cool to be seen with us. When we arrived at the intersection near St. Michael's Elementary School, she turned around and said "get out!" followed by "be up at the viaduct at 8:00 or you're walking."
Our costumes were lame: Lois was an Eskimo and I was something with wings. To make matters worse, mom made us wear slickers over them because it was drizzling. We went door to door, reciting a poem my dad had written just for the occasion, gathering the much-needed candy along with the occasional apple and sampling of pennies. Our worst fear: people who wanted a trick or a joke, on top of the poem. We were never prepared for that.
The police cars drove around passing out treats. This was back in the day when they handed out actual candy and not anti-crack pamphlets like they do now. Lois and I went to more doors than we should have...our treat bags were visibly full. We speculated that in the future we needed a secure drop-off location for half-way through the evening, someplace where we could hide the candy so it didn't look like we were so full up. If the adults saw an overflowing bag, they'd gyp us for sure. We needed a plan. At the last minute we started stuffing our pockets.
At what seemed like 7:30 we decided to call it quits and began walking towards the viaduct to await Linda, who was last seen headed for the store that sells eggs and toilet paper to teenagers on Halloween. We stopped to take a rest. Lois spotted our family car in the Dairy Queen parking lot. "Let's go, NOW" she said as we ran across the street. Just then, the handle on my bag ripped and all my candy fell onto the street. The cars were coming and Lois ran to the other side while I desperately tried to save as much as I could. The apples started to roll. Pennies were everywhere. Milky Ways, Mounds, Paydays, M&Ms, Snickers, all the candy was scattered. I was grabbing, watching the cars get closer, Lois yelling out "Leave it!" That was easy for her to say; her bag was full. I ran across the street in the nick of time, my heart pounding. Cars drove over the remainder of my stash and we stood and watched until it was nothing more than a smear in the road.
When we got to the Dairy Queen Linda was gone so we walked home. Our mom looked us up and down: "What happened to you?!" I explained the ordeal with the ripped treat bag handle and how I tried to save the candy. Lois dumped her goodies on the floor and sorted them by type, counting out loud as she did: "Three PayDays, Seven Mounds..." until my mother made her stop. Mom loved Mounds and we always gave those to her. Our dad liked it all and we left the candy out for him too, since he worked second shift, with a note that said he could take what he wanted as long as it wasn't the Reese's cups. Lois and I went to bed, Halloween mercifully over for another year.
Lisa MacConnell