Halloween II
Overheard while taking the kids trick or treating tonight:
·“I like your costume, but it’s not slutty enough”
·“How did you do on that Calc test today?”
·“I don’t know what I am going as…” said by a kid wearing a black outfit and a black cape.
·“Mommy, I have to go to the bathroom.” This was overheard at least fifteen times.
·“Daddy! Get out of my candy!”
·“What is your costume supposed to be?” “I don’t know, I think I am a zombie Brett Favre…”
Most of the people I ran into while I was taking my kids out to trick or treat tonight had no reason to be out. Most of them should have been out on dates in their cars with their girlfriends. I guess in this society where kids live with their parents until they are thirty-five it is acceptable to go out trick or treating when you are seventeen.
I do not want to turn this into a big bitch session and start this off by saying, “when I was a kid” but I am sorely tempted to do it. Don’t these kids have something better to do? Don’t they have jobs by now…jobs that can pay for bags of candy? Heck, some of the kids were wandering around without any sort of recognizable costume on at all. One kid looked like he dug down into his hamper as far as he could, found a sloppy dress shirt, one of his dad’s ties, and he went as a “business man.” The worst costume by far was high school aged girl who went as a Bratz doll…
My party of trick or treaters fell behind a large group of high school aged children for a bit. I tried to pay as much attention as I could while we walked. The conversations were the normal drab blah blah that anybody would have, but at one point, some of the girls were discussing the fact that they hated their outfits. They actually wanted to have sluttier garb. I guess this is a product of the “well, if a boy doesn’t look at me or I don’t put out, he will go like some other girl” mentality. It really saddens me not because I am worried about the future, it saddens me because I have a daughter myself and she is just about to enter this uncertain and self-conscious stage of her life. It’s going to be hell on her because of the way she is “inside.” Not to sound so dramatic here, but I hope to help her along the way as much as I humanly can. Right, I know: famous last words.
So this group of kids I am behind is strolling along and I am listening and I am learning what I am supposed to expect in the next few years. Two of the kids, a couple I guess, separate themselves from the crowd and head off to make out behind a stand of bushes. When I was younger, I used to think that parents who followed their kids in cars while the youngsters were trick or treating was somewhat stupid…or at least a tad bit overprotective. I am not so sure now. I may well just be one of those dads who does that sort of thing. I already know that I am the type of father who is going to be cleaning a gun when my daughter’s first drive date comes to pick her up…
