Trick or Treat

I forgot to ask - did you have a good Halloween?  Did you wander around your neighbourhood with a sheet over your head knocking on peoples' doors?  Mind you, it doesn't have to be Halloween to do that - in some parts of the US they do it all year round, except it is only the black neighbours they visit and its always 'trick' and no 'treat', as they always leave burning crosses on the lawns, regardless of their reception.  Personally, I neither went knocking on doors nor was I troubled by anyone knocking on mine.  And let's face, it would have been more than a little peculiar if I had dressed up as a ghost and went knocking on doors demanding confectionery with menaces. For one thing, I'm far too old for that sort of shit and, for another, I don't think 'trick or treat' is meant to be a solitary occupation.  Crazy, huh?  For some strange reason, going around in a mob and knocking on strangers' doors while wearing masks and threatening to throw eggs at their houses is considered less threatening than doing it on your own.  Yeah, that's right - if I was going to do it on my own, I'd be considered some kind of weirdo.  Or perhaps even a dangerous psychopath.  Even stranger, if I was to go around trick or treating on my own, I would be considered even weirder if I didn't wear some kind of costume while I did it, instead wearing my normal street clothes.

So, if I had wanted to go trick or treating, I would have had to tag along with a group of kids if I wanted to avoid being labelled as 'weird'.  But even that would have been considered dodgy: a grown man hanging out with kids to go demanding sweets from neighbours.  OK, I suppose that I could pretend to be the parent of one or ore of them, but that would probably be considered even stranger.  Besides, I wouldn't want people to think that I was the kind of parent who allowed their kids to hang out with strange men while harassing the neighbours.  The only other alternative would be to form a group of like minded adults to go trick or treating with - that way I couldn't be labelled a dangerous loner or a potential nonce.  Then again, you can guarantee that a group of masked and costumed adults wandering around knocking on doors and shouting 'trick or treat' at householders would inevitably be classified as a dangerous gang.  You just can't win these days, you really can't.  If you are an adult, you simply aren't allowed to indulge in any kind of innocent fun any more.  So, it's just as well that I didn't actually want to go trick or treating this Halloween.