Halloween...... A Kick To The Peanuts

Article by Kimberly Avery

In the past, my husband and I always celebrated Halloween on the road. And by road, I mean the road in our neighborhood. We spent our Halloweens walking up and down sidewalks watching our kids, and eventually grandkids, trick-or-treat, and occasionally we would end the night by taking them to a neighborhood Halloween party. 

With just the two of us this year, I told my husband I was looking forward to our first Halloween at home. “Let's let Halloween come to us this year,” I mused. “It’ll definitely be less work.” 

My husband happily agreed and added, “Sounds like we could probably turn out the porch light and be in bed by nine this year.” At our age, our favorite holidays are now exclusively the ones we celebrate in our living room, usually sipping wine and donning cozy bedroom slippers before concluding the night with a one-room commute.

Thinking back on my own childhood, trick or treating was the one holiday adventure reserved just for little kids, and as little kids we looked forward to it all year. Each Halloween my friends and I dressed up in cheesy-themed plastic costumes that included a matching mask with tiny uneven slits to serve as peepholes. Looking back, I can only imagine the discussion involved in the design of the costumes. I’m certain it must have been some childless genius in marketing’s brilliant idea. “I know let's wrap the little kids in sauna suits blindfold them with a mask and send them out in the dark to beg while holding a plastic pumpkin with no lid.” 

My first clue that Halloween had changed dramatically since my childhood should have been the reaction of my neighbor when I told her we were staying home and simplifying Halloween this year. 

“But what are you planning to dress as?” She wanted to know. 

Confused by her question, I asked, “Dress up as?” For my generation, once we reached puberty, it was understood we stopped begging on Halloween. We stopped expecting people to give us something just because we were cute (except for those of us who went on to work in Hollywood or at Hooters).

“Everyone dresses up! Even to give out candy.” 

“Well,” I sighed. “Since I’m over four feet tall, I guess I’ll dress as a mature adult.” 

She raised her eyebrows in disbelief and laughed. “You're a humor columnist, so that might be hard for you to pull off.”

Walking into the local pharmacy later that afternoon, I passed two large posters. One read: One in four Americans will develop diabetes. The other said: Buy three bags of candy, get three free. I was happy to combine errands and save time by shopping for our Halloween night giveaways at the same place I picked up my prescriptions, but honestly, what evil scheme was this? It seemed preposterous that in the month of October, pharmacists holding people responsible for diabetes treatment also double as drug mules pushing candy. You’d think more people would be able to see the blatant hypocrisy, I contemplated to myself, moving the EpiPens to reach the candy peanuts. 

As I surveyed what was left of the ransacked, diabetes-inducing aisle, I pondered carefully which candy to choose. This was an important choice for me. A choice not based on price, which candy was leftover, or even which candy the little beggars would like the most. If history serves, it is far more important that I choose the candy based on my own candy needs. 

Meaning, I needed to pick the candy I hated most. 

As a recovering sugar addict, I can’t be trusted to purchase and bring home unopened bags of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups or M&M’s or Nerds or Skittles or 3 Musketeers, or, if I’m being honest, any edible candy. In fact, we haven’t kept sweets in our house since 2001, or the Cookie Delivery Debacle, as my family now calls it. My fall off the sugar wagon that year coincided with the unfortunate intersection of Girl Scout Cookie season and the second trimester of my third pregnancy. The result was my traumatic transformation in less than a month from a woman resembling the Pillsbury Doughboy to someone who had eaten the Pillsbury Doughboy. I remember My OB-GYN’s bafflement as he asked what on earth I had been eating. 

I tried to explain. “Well, the Girl Scout Cookies were delivered.”

“How many of them did you eat?” He asked incredulously. 

“Maybe forty-five or fifty,” I admitted. 

“Cookies?” 

“No, boxes.”

Not wanting a repeat of this debacle, I decided to play it safe this year. I scoured the shelves for the most unappealing candy I could find. At the check-out counter, the cashier observed my candy choices and looked up with such astonishment you would have thought she had just seen Elvis. 

“Wow,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve seen anyone purchase this candy since I was a kid.” She squeezed one of the bags. “In fact, this may be the same candy from when I was a kid.” 

What does she know? I thought. Obviously, she was naive and had never lived through the hell of her own Cookie Delivery Debacle. Undaunted and proud of my practical (although possibly inedible) choice, I left the store and soon arrived home with ten unopened bags of circus peanuts. 

By five p.m., my husband and I had turned on the porch light, dumped the candy into a bowl, put on our cozy slippers, and poured ourselves glasses of wine. We were ready for the sweet little munchkins.

“You're actually going to try to pass that off as Halloween candy?” My husband asked. 

“Tiny kids are many things, but discriminatory against candy is not one of them,” I assured him.

Almost immediately, we began to hear commotion outside. Peering out the window, we saw our street already crawling with an onslaught of vehicles. Golf carts, cars, Amazon vans, buses, tractor-trailers, and even an Uber – all delivering hundreds of trick-or-treaters to our doorstep.

First on our stoop arrived a tiny shades-wearing fighter pilot with his own co-pilot, his helicopter mom, glued to his side. I offered him a treat, and he smiled, reaching inside the bowl.

Upon glimpsing the candy, his mother gasped. “Drop that!” She yelled at him. “He’s allergic! Didn’t you receive the neighborhood letter warning against giving out anything with nuts?” 

“Oh, it's just circus peanuts,” I assured her. 

“I don’t care what kind of peanuts they identify as! It’s very irresponsible,” she shamed.

This was only the first of many incidents to come.

Soon, entire families were on our porch, every family member dressed according to theme. The largest family appeared dressed as the Kardashians, the kids holding candy-collecting swag bags that said, Place Bling Here, while the adults held bags reading, Venmo Me.  

Instead of begging, one woman actually rang our bell to ask if the skeleton decorations strewn across our yard were real or made of plastic. 

“Of course they're not real,” I told her. “We're not cold-blooded killers.” 

“So you claim,” she said. “But you're killing the environment with every bone in that skeleton's body.” 

During a brief lull in the action, I was startled to open our door and encounter a lone young man much taller than me standing on our stoop. He modeled droopy jeans and a sweatshirt with the hood pulled up over his head. The stubble on his face told me that, along with forgetting his costume, he had forgotten to shave. He was holding a pillowcase full of candy in one hand and his phone to his ear in the other. I held out our bowl of candy and smiled. 

“Aged-out Disney channel star?” I guessed. 

“No,” he mumbled. 

“Mark Zuckerberg?” I guessed again. “Unabomber?” 

Visibly annoyed, he picked through our bowl while talking on his phone at the same time. “They’re giving away what at house 378? Cough drops? Dude, I can top that. This lady is pushing circus peanuts.” 

A little ballerina arrived and pushed her way past him. “Is your candy gluten-free?” she asked me. 

“Her candy’s taste free,” The teen informed her. 

At one point, I opened the door to see only an older couple smiling back at me. I looked around, confused. Was this couple actually begging without children? I know there’s a recession but really? Reading my face, they pointed down to my feet. I moved aside the candy bowl I was holding to reveal a tiny dog resembling a rat donned in a witch hat staring up at me.   

Not having prepared for non-human trick-or-treaters and not wanting to risk what would happen if we didn’t have a treat, I backed inside. I quickly located our napping pug, ripped her bone from under her chin, and tossed it out the door.

Exhausted and still holding a full bowl of candy, I looked up to see an adorable toddler coming up our walk holding her mother's hand. She was dressed as Eeyore from the Hundred-Acre Woods. “Aren't you precious?” I exclaimed. 

Scooping a giant pile of candy into her little bag, she smiled and said simply, “More?” I was delighted that she seemed to not mind that our candy was unpopular. Not wanting to miss the opportunity to unload the rest, I quickly poured all the candy that remained into her little bag. 

The small girl seemed very pleased. 

“What do you say? Tell the nice woman ‘thank you,’” her mother prompted. The little girl stared up at me silently. “Tell her ‘thank you,’” her mother prompted again. Little Eeyore shook her head. “Tell her!” Her mother demanded again, much louder this time. 

“It's ok,” I said.

“No, she must say ‘thank you,’” her mother announced. Little Eeyore didn’t move and didn’t say anything. I was beginning to understand more fully the connection between this child and her costume. Thirty minutes later, stubborn little Eeyore was still mute and her mother, from whom she had obviously inherited her stubbornness, was still determined to hear that “thank you.”

In all the loud begging and confusion, I glanced up to see an end-of-the-night straggler and his parents making their way toward our door. Realizing we were now out of candy and trying to save this family from joining the chaos, I blurted out, “I have no peanuts!” Suddenly, the porch fell silent. The disgust and confusion on everyone's faces, combined with the parents’ ninja-like moves to cover their son's ears, told me they had not heard me pronounce the word “peanuts.”

At this point, I decided I was done. Halloween was officially over, at least at our house. As silently as little Eeyore, I backed up slowly, closed the door, and flipped off the porch light. Inside, my husband asked excitedly, “Did you actually give away all that candy?” 

“Yes.”

“Were people disgusted by the peanuts?” He chuckled. 

“More than you know,” I answered truthfully. 

“Can we head to bed now?” He asked. 

“Yes,” I agreed. “We’re going to need our rest.”

“Why is that?” 

“Well, there was an unfortunate circus peanut incident earlier that has me anticipating a visit from Child Protective Services early in the morning.”

Edited by Rebekah Crozier