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?

Design by Katherine Lee | Page Design by Sarah Chung

