Just the Treat Please

Halloween has always been a stressful time for me.  As a child I was very shy.  I mean hide behind my mother painfully shy.  On top of being shy I also had an embarrassing lisp that prevented me from even being able to say my unheard of name correctly.  Whenever I was forced to tell a stranger my name they always looked at me like I was crazy and had me repeat it five times before butchering it in a new fantastic way.  My name, however, is not the topic of this story.

I loved Trick or Treating as any normal elementary age child does.  This was back in the day when kids actually went door to door instead of just going to the mall or to a "Trunk or Treat".  I loved candy and wanted to collect as much as possible.  The problem being that I didn't want to actually talk to any of the people providing the candy.  Or knock on their door for that matter.

My mom would follow me around, knock on the door for me, say trick or treat and I would stand there mute holding out my plastic pumpkin.  I can't imagine what these people thought by the time I was in the 4th or 5th grade and this was still going on.  Some would try to talk to me about my costume and I would just stare blankly at them until they shut up and forked over the candy.  

What really gets me are the people who require a joke or some sort of talent to be performed before they will give out the candy.  I mean, who started this?  Trick or treat does not mean I do a trick for a treat.  It means that if I don't get a treat then I will play a trick on you.  Like toilet papering your entire house or leaving poop on your door step.  I don't know where these people get off demanding a joke from a child.  If they don't want to hand out the free candy then just turn your porch light off.  Whenever I was put in this situation as a child I would just do my usual stare and they would usually just give up and give over the candy.  On the rare occasion that they would actually not give in and require a joke of some sort I would just start to cry and run to my mommy totally upset that I didn't get any candy.  She would have to apologize and explain that I was really shy.  Of course, I would totally end up with the candy.  Crying always gets you candy.  

With all of this happening, I am not sure why I love Halloween so much.  I don't like scary things either.  If a house looked too scary I would skip it and pass on the candy entirely.  Any adult that dressed up and tried to scare me with a "BOO" would always end up with me bawling and cowering behind my mother while she collected the entire bowl of candy as an apology.

I have, of course, grown out of this painfully shy stage.  I can ask for my own candy now, not that I would Trick or Treat at my age.  I just hope that if I ever have kids I won't have to do the Trick or Treating for them like my mom did.