halloween fun of yore

Last night after our kids were finished trick or treating, and we had run out of candy, I thought "hmm, I should bring in that pumpkin." Not that I'm all sentimental about the pumpkin, it'll probably be put on the curb next week or the week after. It's more that I'm worried that some prankster is going to smash it against my house. For the same reasons, I made sure the van was parked inside the garage. You never know what kinds of things the neighborhood kids are going to do once the lights go out.

Not that I mind good clean fun.

Then I got thinking of the stuff we used to do. When I say "we" I mean "Leigh Ann and I." Sorry Leigh Ann, I'm going to drag you into this! When I still lived in Austin, Leigh Ann and I were on the fire department together. It was only a year or two, and then I moved to Portage. Every gate night and Halloween, the fire department was in charge of patrolling the town to make sure bad things weren't happening. Leigh Ann and I always volunteered for the earliest shift possible. We diligently patrolled the streets of Austin, keeping the bad guys in check. When our shift ended, we'd run home, dress all in dark clothes, and then the fun would really begin! Good clean fun, mind you.

Here is a brief summary of some of the stuff we were responsible for:

• firewood on mainstreet. Until Cedric and Lois caught us in their woodpile. Then we ran away.
• a heap of pumpkins that we hauled across town and stacked against Phil's door. I think it was Phil. We actually had a little help with this one. I won't name names. Actually, the pranks against Phil went far and beyond Halloween. We did LOTS of stuff to Phil. He didn't mind, from time to time he'd try to get even, but not with quite as much zest as our pranks.
• oatmeal smeared on a car windshield. Ever try to wash oatmeal out of a pot a few hours after breakfast? Pretty sticky. Imagine it freeze-dried onto your window.
• huge bags of shredded paper (thanks to the austin credit union - not that they knew about it) unleashed into vehicles. That one was fun. Takes forever to actually get all that out. It's also amazing how a garbage bag of the stuff, when fluffed out, can FILL a car.
• the toilet papering of every vehicle parked at the firehall.
• seran wrap on toilet seats. Again, at the firehall. Luckily though, it wasn't perfect and they noticed before the main attraction.

There was more stuff too, but I won't incriminate us any further. We actually planned this stuff out well in advance too. Imagine us dressed all in our black clothes, laughing our asses off, and cooking oatmeal at 11 o'clock at night so we could do stuff with it. We had our supplies ready, our dark clothes, and our vehicles were always stashed somewhere where nobody could find them for retaliation. We didn't even mind having to walk back across town after ditching the cars somewhere. We were quite adept at B&E after a while too. Phil can attest to that. His house was always locked, but it never stopped us.

Funny that neighbors never saw us. If they did, they never said anything. They'd have probably helped. Small towns are fun that way.