Hallowe’en Heroics

Here’s a little gem from the archives: 2010 to be exact, when I was supply teaching in Peterborough and getting to know my neighbours on Charlotte Street. Happy Hallowe’en!

Today I scored huge points with my skinhead neighbour’s children.

Every year at the end of October I start to think about how I’m going to evade Hallowe’en.  I hate the skeletons, gravestones, witches and, yes, even the spiders.  I don’t get why the entire continent gets such a charge out of thinking about icky, dark, evil things for a month every fall.  Fall is icky enough without the ghosts and the orange and black.  Why make it colder, scarier, crueller?

On the eve of Hallowe’en Party Day, I begin wringing my hands about the horrors that the next day will hold for me.  Hallowe’en is NOT a fun day for supply teachers.  One year I had to stand in a dark gymnasium for several hours watching a bunch of questionably-clad Grade 8 students flirt, jump, gyrate, and grope one another, while their teachers danced along.  I spent the afternoon wondering how to go about covering my ears and my eyes at the same time.

Then there are the little ones, who are admittedly cute, especially when they are princesses and superheros instead of murderers and zombies.   The thought of wearing unusual clothes and acquiring unlimited free candy is unbearably exciting for these little ghouls, and it all begins at school.  The only, ONLY potential perk is the possibility that they will share their haul.

This year I was happily (and completely legitimately) disconnected in the middle of the only call I got from the school board, so I clasped my hands and thought grateful thoughts.  I had successfully evaded Part I of Hallowe’en.  Then came Part II: Trick or Treating.

Now let me just be clear.  I do like children, especially cute ones who are especially cute when they show up grinning at my door.  I like seeing their grins grow as I drop sugary garbage into their sacks.  I feel very benevolent when I grin back and give them free goods that they did absolutely nothing to earn.  But when I’m making my October grocery run, trying to keep my own malnutrition at bay for another 30 days, I feel nothing but scorn for the candy aisle.  “Hallowe’en is stupid,” I say to myself.  “This year I’m not doing it.”

When I first moved to Peterborough, my thoughts were quite the opposite.  I was a free woman living in a cute house and I was going to be the best neighbour ever.  People would talk about how festive I was.  I bought loads of candy from the Bulk Barn.  I bought a pumpkin, carved it pathetically, stuck a candle in it, and called it Jack.  I was so ready.  And no one even cared.  Two hours later, I was still sitting alone at my front door with a monstrous bag of candy that I didn’t even like.  Jack sat on my step until he rotted, and then I kicked him into the garden where he rotted some more.

So here I am, three Octobers later, fighting the annual Hallowe’en guilt that strikes as I envision all the disappointed little monsters on my dark, deserted doorstep while I hide in some dimly lit corner of my house pretending not to be home.  “I’m a student,” I argue.  “I have tuition to pay, and reading to do, and I don’t have time for this socially endorsed lunacy!”

And then I look out my kitchen window and see my new neighbour’s kids hanging out on their front porch with neon green spiders and other creepy things.  I remember the excitement and pride with which the little guy informed all of his classmates that their supply teacher for the day was his neighbour.  I remember the day I gave the girl a jar for her pet caterpillar, complete with custom-made holes in the lid and a page from the internet about how to feed larvae.  You’d think I had bought her a pony.

Now this changes things.  The Hallowe’en Guilt goes up a notch or two when it’s real human beings you’re depriving of sustenance, and a notch or two more when you know their names! What was I to do? I searched my cupboards.  I had rock-hard toffee candies from three years ago and some green lollipops that had clearly melted and reformed themselves several times in their flimsy packages.  This would never do.  It’s worse to give out disgusting candy than none at all. Oh, if only we still lived in the days when you could give a kid a nice, healthy, razor-blade-free apple!    

And so I had no choice.  I entered a grocery store unnecessarily, of my own accord, and bought six orange and black cupcakes.  I walked up to the neighbour’s porch in the middle of the afternoon and gave them to the children and their friends.  They looked at me as if I were a goddess.  They said thank-you over and over and over and told me I was “nice.”  They licked the icing, wiped their faces with their sleeves, and licked again.  The next time I went outside, they cried, “Thank-you for the cupcakes, Miss Regehr!” and expounded on their tastiness.  I was a hero.  Me.  A Hallowe’en Hero.

I still did my best to evade Hallowe’en: Part II.  I went out for the evening, slunk home in the dark, and turned out all my lights.  I didn’t hear a single knock or see a single devastated face.  Things were looking good.  I decided that I didn’t mind rock-hard-toffees after all, and that I deserved a treat as I geared up for Halloween, Part III: “THE DAY AFTER”…