The Trials of “Trick-or-Treat” by Sue Dvorak The scariest part of Halloween has been putting together six costumes each October. There are two types of parents: those who love collecting and creating Halloween costumes and those who do not. Unfortunately for my children, I do not. But like many quirks of family life they were blissfully unaware of this up until they had other standards to compare to. Long ago an enthusiastic costumecreator gave us two different sized adorable Dalmatian dog costumes she had made. For about ten Halloweens in a row someone in our family was dressed as a dog, as in “who wants to be the Dalmatian?”, again made possible by the fact my kids did not know that some children dress up as different things each year. The black gown and face mask combo was always a reliable basic option, which later became less ideal when our youngest child became terrified of all face masks, let alone intentionally scary ones. It got so bad that I had to keep secret which room I hid the masks in, because she would be unable to enter if she knew. Our daughter’s fear of masks led to some authentically scary Halloween experiences.
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One year I opened the front door to greet a garden-variety group of trick-or-treaters. As observed by our two year old crouched on the stairs, one was wearing a mask. Our daughter’s continuous blood-curdling screams began and did not stop throughout the greeting and candy exchange. Initially the trick-or-treaters were suitably impressed by our fabulous sound effects but rapidly became alarmed. A bumble bee began to cry. They all ran down the driveway terrified. The entire exercise repeated itself in reverse when we went out later. A gentleman answered his door wearing a mask. He must have thought it quite a “trick” that we greeted him with a happy, polite chorus of “trick or treat!!” combined with incessant terrorized screaming. Savvy kids will notice that it becomes very unlikely you will be asked to sing a song for your candy if one member of your group is screaming without breathing. Just FYI.
www.DunbarLife.com | September 1 - November 15, 2014
