After seeing this cluster of posts on boston-online.com, I have to say this year was pretty disappointing.
One kid reached into the bowl and took more candy, after I had already tossed some into his bag. Shit, when I was a kid, if anyone was that greedy there would be hell to pay. I can’t even imagine what Pat’s reaction might have been, but the retribution would be swift and not silent.
There were a lot of adults or pretty freaking old kids knocking on the door. In one group of people, the three guys had fucking goatees. Not peach fuzz, mind you, but serious, full-on, groomed facial hair. I gave them shit for going door to door.
Someone else, who was in that weird Hillary Duff kind of groove, so she could have been young and trying to look old, or actually old, didn’t take her cell phone away from her face to provide a cursory “Trick or Treat.” That one was particularly weird, because someone opened my front door and stepped into my hallway, where the candy was, but I hollered and the door shut again. When I opened the door and said something, the cell-phone chick said it wasn’t her and proffered her plastic pumpkin’s opening toward me.
A few non-English speaking people came by who were clearly adults. I dunno, maybe that was just a weird cultural disconnect not greedy begging behavior.
Our neighborhood has lots of kids of all ages, and they tend to come in waves: First we get the too-cute-for-words 3-6 year-olds dressed as princesses and pumpkins and Batman and whatnot. Then the 7-10 year olds, some of whom really put some thought into their costumes (this year we had one girl who was a gumball machine – followed by a sister or friend who was the quarter you use to get the gum. Then finally, the last wave, of teens who clearly are out for free food, many of them dressed only as, um, raggedy teenagers. My wife makes them pay, though – they get nothing until they say “trick or treat.”
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