Halloween, MacGyver, and the Candy Denial

This year was a very good Halloween for me. It was the first time I had dressed up since freshman year, when I went to my friend's costume party as "Rock" (you see, I went with two other kids, who were "Paper" and "Scissors"). I had to dress up this year, because the Cellar Dwellers threw their own costume party as part of their FN'Improv workshop. Everyone was asked to dress up, including audience members.

The show was incredibly successful, and about 90% of our audience actually dressed up for the occasion. Usually what happens is I plan on dressing up, but never think about a costume, and then throw one together at the last second (hence "Rock). This year, I planned, I deliberated, and I went with what was inside my heart: MacGyver. I went out and bought a blonde mullet wig from Wal-Mart; combined with it with a brown, leather bomber jacket and blue jeans; and tied it all together with a Swiss Army Knife. Of course, all of the mullet wigs out there are "Joe Dirt" length, and MacGyver's was never all that long. So I busted out Season 3 (when he had arguably his healthiest mullet) and Karissa trimmed the wig for me.

The costume went over very well, of course, as I sort have become known at FN'Improv as the resident "MacGyver nut." Helping the matter further was the fact that I actually had to help "macgyver" some things during the night. My Swiss Army Knife was put to good use a handful of times, and I was able to use my duct tape (which I had on my jeans) in a scene. I like to think that I was the cooler, early seasons, MacGyver, back when he was going on adventures and fighting foreign spies; not that later MacGyver, who spent all of his time whining about pollution and helping hippies in an urban commune.

The Halloween show at FN'Improv rocked pretty hard, and was essentially the climax of the Halloween season for me. I went to Zombiefest, as I previously mentioned, and didn't do much else to really get into the spirit.

Tonight, on the actual Halloween, the trick-or-treaters started coming to the door. My mom was thankfully on candy duty--I, personally, can't deal with all the little children running up the steps in costumes. There's a certain attitude expected of the candy-giver. Usually, you have to talk in that cute voice, tell the kids that they look cute, and really delight in seeing everyone. That's not really my scene, and I'm terrible at talking to kids.

Unfortunately, my mom had to step away from the door momentarily, and I was caught having to answer the siren call of candy-hungry kids. I opened the door to find five kids thrusting their pillow cases at me. The problem was, they weren't dressed as anything. I looked at them for a moment, and considered grilling them on the porch about what they were supposed to be.

Back when I was in grade school, and use to go trick-or-treating, kids were denied candy if they didn't have the costume. That just seems fitting to me. The costume is the only aspect of Halloween that makes begging for hand-outs acceptable. If you don't have the costume on, you are no better than a street beggar with a sweet tooth. And while I was standing there, thinking about all of this, looking at the faces of these children, I decided that I wasn't going to waste my breath. I gave them each a small bag of pretzels and sent them on their way. At least they thanked me.

Perhaps next year I will try to operate one of those "scary porches." You know the ones that you are afraid to walk up to in order to get candy. Usually these porches involve someone sitting there in make-up, or some sort of light-sensored ghost noise. Rather than going out of my way to scare the kids the convention way, I'll just give them candy while lecturing them about accepting hand-outs. That'll scare the crap out of them.