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Laugh
if you Love Halloween Candy
But keep
your hands where I can see them
By Bill Zahren
(Posted 05/23/03)
Stop
me if you've heard this one before:
Why didn't the skeleton
cross the road? No guts. (Rim shot.)
Ohhhhhhh, ahhhhhh, hahahahahaha.
Wait, let me wipe the tears of laughter. For some reason,
the kids in the greater Des Moines area feel obligated to
tell jokes as they go door-to-door in the annual candy company
economic stimulus event known as Halloween.
Don't be shocked. We Iowans
are a funny tribe. We just don't make a big show of it. We
don't make a big show of anything, come to think of it. It's
not our way. We do the farm thing, the business thing, the
great school thing, the tell-the-clerk-when-she-gave-you-too-much-change-back
thing and we know the difference between a barrow and a boar,
a guilt and a sow. (Hint: it has to do with animal sex and
genitals.)
We're way into irony, understatement
and my personal favorite -- sarcasm. So it didn't surprise
me when the kids cracked wise while panhandling for candy
last night. Yeah, last night. Oct. 30 is the day for government-sanctioned
Trick-or-Treating in the greater Des Moines area.
What's a mole's favorite
book? A digtionary. (Knee slap!)
The joke-and-day-before-Halloween
thing started around 1934 as a way to avoid the vandals. Police
were busy busting skulls in typical 1930s fashion on Oct.
31, so they asked the kiddies to go trick-or-treating a day
earlier. And some guy came up with the idea of making them
work for the candy by telling jokes.
About half the kids who came
to my door in posh West Des Moines last night told jokes.
Most were quickies -- don't want to delay getting to the candy
with one of those "a rabbit, a cowboy and a priest walked
into a bar" deals. I laughed at a few. Appreciated the effort
on all of them. A kid from down the block who has experienced
my "I Am the Bull of this Herd, Sparky, So Govern Yourself
Accordingly" fatherly stare hit me with:
What do bikes do when they
get old? Retire.
Funny bit, Michael. I'll let
you live. Just treat my daughters with courtesy and respect
or I'll throw you over your house, DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?
Actually, he's a nice kid. Doesn't act incorrectly around
the girls, as evidenced by him still having the full use of
both arms. Just gotta set the tone with the boys, is all.
Got to keep reminding them who's the Alpha and the Omega in
this yard.
Stuff has changed radically
since my Trick-or-Treat years back in tony Lake Park, Iowa,
population 1000 (including pets). Back in the 70s, my older
sister, Teresa, and I (never together, of course) would roam
the entire town on foot, trick-or-treating our brains out.
We were like free-roaming, rapacious candy hogs, foraging
in the glow of every porch light, including those of total
strangers. Didn't matter. Just fork over the candy, baby.
Part of the beauty of small towns is that they don't attract
many terrorists and child poisoners.
Why did the coach go to
the bank? To get his quarterback.
A woman who lived behind us
always gave out FULL SIZED candy bars. We hit her first and
then wondered if we could change costumes and hit her again.
She was always wise to our action though. Old woman was sharp
as a tack.
During the height of my Trick-or-Treat
prowess, circa 1975, I'd spend hours roaming the town, often
with my next-door neighbor, Jim. One year Jim and I rigged
up a ghost that would slide on fishing line about 50 feet
from Jim's roof down to his mailbox. We spent a couple weeks
doing R&D and testing our plan, including drawing Wile E.
Coyote-like blueprints of how it would work. We did the two-handed
victory salute on top of his roof when we scared the (rhymes
with "hit") out of a few people who thought our sliding ghost
was Lucifer himself coming to claim their souls.
Then the town's Future Prison
Inmate (the guy whose class votes him "Most Likely to Wear
Leg Irons Someday") came by and cut our fishing line. Right
now I'm imagining him celebrating Halloween at the Iowa State
Penitentiary in Fort Madison. Trick-or-Treat!
What's the only room of
the house a ghost can't go into? Living room. (Guffaw!)
Fast-forward 25 years
and I'm all grown up and mildly worried about some freak giving
my kids tainted candy. Like every parent, I have the rules
memorized -- never go to strangers' houses, irradiate your
candy, don't even look at anything includes powder, never
take homemade stuff, wear reflective clothing and rubber gloves,
set off road flares as you go and take along adults, preferably
the 2nd Armored Division. Or go to the mall for Welfare Trick-or-Treat.
(Stand in line, get candy, go home.)
Still, my daughters seem OK
with the way things are now, and I'm not going to screw it
up bitching about times past like some kind of crusty 87-year-old.
"In my day, we didn't have to pack heat to go trick-or-treating!"
After the test results come
back from the Center for Disease Control I'm sure my kids
will enjoy their candy. Next year we're flying the kids around
in a gunship helicopter. We'll set her down in the park at
the end of our block, establish a perimeter, get snipers up
on the restroom roof, radio all clear to the circling AWACS
and enjoy the holiday.
Happy Halloween.
© 2001 Bill Zahren
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