Tribulations of Halloweens Past

Happy Halloween

Halloween is a big deal at our house. It is Pan’s favorite holiday and he goes all out in decorating. Not that the family hasn’t contributed a lot. For the Christmases past, Bug and Brains bought Pan, Death and a skeleton for his makeshift graveyard (which just happen to be cement and not Styrofoam) and a smoke machine. Mom stepped in a couple of years ago with a load of rats and bats, skeletons, medieval sconces and a walking hand. My contributions: a bubble machine and a three-foot tarantula. Now combine all this with strobes and black lights, an oscilloscope and a jacob’s ladder.

So you get the picture. And you will get to see pictures, later. But this should have given you some indication of what our house is like on Halloween. We have fun; spend way to much money on candy and other give-always, but fun.

As I look back at all that we have done on Halloween though, one really stands out in my mind. It was when the children were still home. Nuke was always a big Halloween fan and loved planning with Pan. But one particular year, they set up some tables in our garage. On one they put a pair of Nuke’s jeans and stuffed them with old t-shirts. Put socks and shoes on the legs. On the other laid Nuke with his legs tucked under the first table. Over the body goes a sheet. A big bowl of candy is laid to rest next to this Frankenstein’s monster. Are you seeing it yet? Pretty cool, huh?

Here come the trick or treaters. A young mother with child in tow comes in explaining how it is not real when Nuke pipes up with Happy Halloween. The mother ran out screaming. And so goes the evening. Except (saw this one coming didn’t you?) for one little boy. He did not want to go into the garage. Personally I would never make a child do something like this if they didn’t want to, but apparently his mother wanted him to overcome his fear. She walked in with him, talking to him the entire time, pointing everything out and explaining. She walked up to the “dummy” and pinched his “leg.” Nothing happened. See nothing to be afraid off. He took his candy and was walking out when he glanced around. Nuke turned his head and winked. The poor child turned white as a ghost, took off running as fast as he could to get away.