O
n Halloween, we eat dinner early. The
setting sun beams in through the front
windows as we form a line around the
kitchen counter, our paper plates eager to touch
the hot pizza. We scarf down the necessary carbs
while sitting in whatever clothing will lie under-
neath our costumes.
A lot has led up to this moment. Anticipa-
tion clung to the air like fine mist when we were
at school a few hours before. Mentions of route
plans, candy bars of choice and costumes fluttered
between our mouths. And even though there
were no Halloween celebrations allowed in class,
the end of the day bell would turn us all loose to be
anything we wanted to be.
The magic of this feeling waned as we grew
older. Young adulthood morphed trick-or-treating
into oblivion, and the sweet hoards of chocolate
from the morning after soured into math tests on
Nov. 1. But as kids, the only thing we cared to count
was the KitKats and Twizzlers that made their
way into orange sacks, before being unwrapped
and indulged over the following days, all because
we wore a costume to someone’s front door.
Dressing up used to be the trickiest part of
Halloween for me. My mom sewed me a Dalma-
tian costume when I was in first grade, which
was reused with love in many years to follow
due to its soft limbs and my inability to think of
anything else. The getup was easily confused for
a cow, but that didn’t matter: It was Halloween
and I was something that wasn’t me. Over the
years my costume choices were only made in
order to clear the various hurdles the night pre-
sented. Bat costume? The headpiece is too hot.
Sheet ghost? Prepare to trip and not be able to
see half the night. Dalmatian. Didn’t you wear
that last year?
It was in eighth grade that I finally found my
costume niche. I deconstructed the box of our
television, painting both sides in corporate red
with white block lettering, with nutrition facts
and ingredients on the back. Using duct tape
straps to join the two panels over my shoulders, I
became a KitKat. I received more of the chocolate
wafer candy that year than any other. My knees
rammed into the front piece of cardboard as we
darted across neighborhood lawns, slick with the
dew of dusk, but it was breathable, movable and
undeniably recognizable.
My cardboard creations only diversified from
there. I was an iPhone (the paper app icons slid
off the costume in the October rain), an Oreo (a
hamburger to some eyes) and one year I created
my magnum opus: a Christmas tree. Two trian-
gular cardboard pieces painted green, silver tinsel
cascaded down each side and multi-colored lights
bedazzled the front. I was the brightest, most rec-
ognizable, yet most seasonally out-of-place item
on the Halloween streets.
I dressed up as these objects for fun; painting
and gluing and taping were much more enjoyable
activities to take part in than studying, reading or
writing for school. However, this was done out of
necessity as well. It was around my sophomore
year of high school that I had ascended to my cur-
rent height of 6 feet 3 inches. Creative, recogniz-
able dress-up was the only way I could dodge the
criticism that spit from the mouths of the adults
who passed out candy.
“You’re a tall one.” “You’re so grown up!”
Passive-aggressive comments paused at the topic
of height, though others’ words ventured farther
into the evening dark. “Aren’t you a little old for
this?” “I didn’t realize you were trick-or-treating.”
Candy that would flow into my brother’s sack
would only trickle into mine. It was easy to take
the subtle hints personally. Why was I running
from house to house, begging for candy? Wasn’t
there anything better that I was supposed to be
doing, now that I was 15?
I
n high school, Halloween was associated
with parties. Our school’s annual Hallow-
een Dance blasted “Spooky Scary Skeletons”
into the lower gym. Students showed up drunk
on boxed wine or became sugared up on sher-
bert punch, dodging eye contact with teachers
that had graded our homework hours before. We
danced with adequate enthusiasm and talked to
the people we needed to before going home to a
friend’s house, forgetting the haunted mediocrity
of what we just experienced. Trick-or-treat was
out of the picture, and partying in groups was
popular. It was part of growing up.
There’s pressure on high school students to
forgo traditions of childhood and prepare them-
selves for the transition to adulthood. The resi-
dents behind the front doors I trick-or-treated at
thought I should be studying for a test, hanging
out with friends my own age or sitting at home,
pretending to have something to do. The desire
to grow older extended itself to school. Seventh
graders were taken on tours of colleges, students
took quizzes to determine their future career and
summers were to be spent at academic programs.
What is the purpose of ending childhood so early?
Why are high schoolers now pushed away from
the experiences that defined their youth, and
towards ones that will undermine it?
D
espite these pressures, I went trick-or-
treating one last time in my senior year of
high school, on the edge of 17. Earlier that
day, I brought my costume, a refrigerator, to school
as a part of our band’s participation in the next-
door elementary school’s Halloween Parade. The
mechanics of the fridge costume were the most
complex yet: The front consisted of two cardboard
pieces, bound together with plastic screws which
created a fridge door that opened to reveal photo
cutouts of fruit, ketchup and assorted perish-
ables. On the inside of the door panel, the message
Happy Halloween! was painted in black tempera
paint. I opened the costume to reveal the interior
food and message, and won first prize in my high
school band’s costume competition. I hoped my
good fortune would carry into the night.
As per tradition, we ate pizza at our neighbor’s
house a few blocks away — the slices shining in
the waning autumn light, and the napkins ready
to capture any runaway sauce from our mouths.
Parents commented on how it was my last Hal-
loween, and there was nothing more I could do
but smile and nod in acknowledgment. With this
bittersweet atmosphere, the duct tape straps that
held my refrigerator to my shoulders had an addi-
tional heaviness given the weight of my final trick-
or-treat. And as I collected myself and the rest of
my things, little kids, 5 or 6 years old, had started
to roam the streets, getting a head start on candy
collecting before the fall of night. They came up
to the front door of my neighbor’s, and I dropped
sweets into their hands. I looked into their eyes
and saw my former self, at once so different in age,
yet driven by the same desire for candy. My own
crew assembled. I was the oldest, with everyone
else two to six years younger. We promptly closed
the door, yelled for our parents to follow and set
out on our own trick-or-treat journey.
The sidewalks of our suburban neighborhood
were wet from the season’s first snowfall hours
before, and the yellow leaflets that stuck to it mir-
rored the streetlights and stars above. Like moths,
we darted across yards seeking the front porches’
warm glow, an oasis of calm and chocolate. Each
house had its living rooms illuminated, open for
viewing from the outside world. We remembered
neighbors from years past but didn’t dare say their
names, identities blurred by various disguises;
only the confection transactions really mat-
tered. We saw into their lives through dogs bark-
ing in the background, television screens aglow,
hardwood floors littered with pairs of shoes and
shouts to the back in need of candy refills. Any
attempts to see into our identities were foiled with
our disguises. Sure, some noticed the refrigerator
was quite tall, and maybe thought a refrigerator
shouldn’t be trick-or-treating at that age. But, I
was too busy yelling “trick or treat!”, crowding
porch steps and slipping on wet grass to care.
The porch lights turned off at 8 o’clock, and we
walked home, noting the heaviness of our bags.
We reconvened in the living room, sorting and
ranking candy. Our chocolate constellations shift-
ed and changed constantly with trades — M&M’s
whizzing across the room like meteorites, Snick-
ers exchanged for Twizzlers and laughs. Soon,
we were reminded of school the next morning,
and our parents escorted us back to our respec-
tive homes. My brother and I’s faces soaked up the
October night, and each step towards our front
door put us closer to going to bed. We arrived
home, and I still had math homework to do. I
counted my KitKats, I counted how many cal-
culus problems I had left to solve. Now I count
the years since my last trick-or-treat, wondering
if any Halloween will live up to the simple joy of
running in the dark, looking for fructose, finding
friendship.
3 — Wednesday, October 27, 2021 // The Statement
Getting older:
By Oscar Nollette-Patulski,
Statement Columnist
A trick or a treat?
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