Protocols of Halloween

Only 30 minutes from the onset of darkness, Sport discovered that a key element of his Halloween costume was missing, left at his grandmother's. I had a scant half hour to come up with something that would satisfy his urge to transform into a thing otherworldly. I searched through my craft drawer and found some make-up from last year's scream fest. After a hurried consultation, we came up with the possibility of a Dead Pirate.

I layered the kid's face in white make-up, gave him some deep-set eyes and a mouth dripping with blood. LegoGuy let him borrow a set of bubba teeth. I found an old blonde wig. Sport was sufficiently scary, but he also looked like his costume had been thrown together at the last minute. Which it had.

The wig hair kept getting in his eyes, so we tied a bandana around his head. He transformed into a Dead Hippie. That wasn't scary enough for him, however. He wanted to carry a bloody knife.

"Hippies don't carry knives. They're all about peace and love, man!"

Frustration mounted. This wasn't good enough for Halloween. It had to look better. We scrounged through the costume box. Finally, the child's love of sports saved the day. We pulled off the hippie duds and put on the OU football uniform. He became: the Dead Football Player.

LegoGuy, too old this year for trick-or-treating (his words, not ours) volunteered to man the candy station. SO and I layered up and went out into the wind, joining a handful of children trekking down our street.

At first, the DFP was sluggish. The siren call of candy wasn't as captivating this year. Maybe he missed his brother. Maybe he was too cold. Maybe his OU helmet was blocking his view. Whatever the explanation, he started to get into the groove and increased his door-to-door speed when we made it to the next block.

SO and I commented, as we do every year, on the sparse crowd of kids. Aaahh, how we longed for the good old days, when hundreds of kids ran through the neighborhood, screaming in terror as home-owners jumped from behind bushes, or dressed as scarecrows, standing motionless until hapless children came into sight, then scaring the bejeezus out of them. Those were some good times!

With so many different arenas vying for their participation -- the mall, churches, and schools -- those kids who do traditional trick-or-treating are relatively few in number. There's also a limited amount of home-owners who participate, and fewer houses with their porch lights on, beckoning kids to the door.

And don't get me started on those houses that break proper Halloween protocol.

If you've got your porch light on Halloween night, and you don't answer your door to desperate, sugar-craving kids, you have broken a sacred trust. Your house should be egged; the windows of your car ought to be soaped. Worse still are those houses that are decorated for Halloween, with porch lights on, but no one home. What is a child to think of that? And what of those homes with no porch lights on, but they're decorated for Halloween, and the lights are on in the living room. It's a mixed message, people! You are messing with kids' minds! They don't know what to do. We came across groups of small children, frozen with indecision, whimpering on darkened lawns. It's a terrible thing to do to the costumed.

We only came across one house who truly had the spirit of Halloween's past. Their porch light had been replaced by a black light. Something -- someone? -- lurked on the front porch: faceless, lumpy, looking much like a giant potato. As the DFP walked by, the Potato-Man made guttural noises, trying to lure our ghostly athlete to the stash of candy hidden nearby.

"Don't you want to go up?" we asked the DFP.

"No way!" He went to the next house. SO and I stood on the street and watched as the Potato-Man inched closer. Moaning, he held out his misshapen hand. DFP made a beeline for the next house. Potato-Man turned toward us, gesturing. We giggled nervously and followed our kid, moving from the past and into the present.

Here's the Dead Hippie, before he morphed into the Dead Football Player.