I don’t know if it’s just me getting old, but Halloween just doesn’t seem much fun anymore.  Maybe it’s because I’m nostalgic for the days when Kimberly Danzuso Wade and I would patrol our little neighborhood, in some sort of ridiculous get-up, wanting to encounter a fabled character we called The Mad Egger. The Egger threw eggs at the trick-or-treaters parading around the streets in search of fun-size candy bars. I think we always knew it was the guy who lived down the street from us, but we had fun creating a local legend of a crazed guy in a brown station wagon called, aptly, The Eggmobile. If I remember correctly, he’d honk the horn several times to alert people he was near.  As we got older, emboldened by the fact that our parents let us out alone (if we stayed on our street), we’d form a battle cry of “We’re fightin’ the Egger!” But really, every time we’d hear a car horn we’d get really nervous and hide behind a tree.  I’m giggling at the fact that a warm childhood memory is of two young girls thinking they could, in essence, carjack a high school boy and beat him senseless. And then egg him.

Halloween used to be something we started thinking about two days after school started, but I’d always wait until the last minute to put my costume together. I’d fight with my mother about how she clearly didn’t understand my artistic vision if she insisted I wear a coat.  And after we’d walk the cold night, filling our bags with goodies and listening for car horns, I’d come home, red-cheeked and usually with a tear in my costume.  My dad would be stationed at our kitchen table, ready to inspect my loot, because in the 70s, there was apparently a rash of people putting razor blades in apples. I think in all my years of trick-or-treating, I may have gotten one apple, and I wouldn’t have eaten it anyway. It would take me years to realize that my father would look at each piece, deem his favorites as suspicious and put them aside. “I don’t think you better eat this one, Karen. It looks like someone might have stuck something in it,” as I’d lose another Reese’s peanut butter cup.  In his defense, I did always stick him with the Good & Plentis, because they were seriously gross. Add to the list Mary Janes, Bit O Honeys, raisins, and I seem to remember something called a Zagnut, but don’t ask me what that is. And there was another candy that began with a D. I just read an article that Necco wafers are on the list of the worst Halloween candies. I used to give those to my mom, save for the chocolate and orange ones.  The point is, I never had a bad Halloween. They were simply, always fun.

Fast forward several years, past the days of high school Halloween parties, the days of being Halloween Chairwoman in college and winning our house first prize (with some help from Christine Tiritilli’s “borrowing” a gigantic red wagon that was too heavy to return), and I’ve returned to my childhood home.  I’ve forgotten about Halloween this year.

In Bergen County, we call the night before Halloween “Cabbage Night.” We just do. Now, I’m not in favor of vandalism, nor do I condone damaging other people’s property, but I used to get a kick out of the toilet paper displays each Halloween morning, courtesy of the young ruffians who would run about with shaving cream, soap, and/or eggs. (Although my house got egged one year, and that crap ain’t easy to get off.)

This year, I opened my curtains and was disappointed, to a degree, that no toilet paper, no shaving cream, no eggshells were strewn on my street. Or seemingly anywhere. Again, I always make sure my car is properly garaged on Cabbage Night, because one time when I lived in the ghetto my windshield was covered in shaving cream and I ended up running in to a “don’t let your dog poop here” sign.  But seriously. A little toilet paper never hurt anyone. (Unless it’s the cheap kind – ouch!)

I’ve purchased too much candy, as usual. I’ve bought the stuff that I like, in case there are leftovers, but it also has to be on sale. I wait until the morning and open up three bags – 3 Musketeers, Snickers, and Milky Ways. I figure I can’t go wrong with this trifecta of chocolatey goodness.

Each bar is slightly smaller than my thumb. They taste cheap and oddly tangy, and now I’ve found something else about which to be disappointed. It doesn’t stop me, however, from inhaling a few of each, thinking that when I run out I can always shut off the porch light, sit in darkness, and pretend no one’s home. With each bite I see another yard of fabric that will have to be added to a bridesmaid dress I’m scheduled to wear in about a year, but I’ll eat nothing but plain cabbage tomorrow. I promise.

It’s still early, and I boot up my computer, wondering what news story or idiotic tweet will make me cringe, and I see an email from the police state in which I now live. My sleepy little town with one traffic light (ok, now two) issues their zero-tolerance policy on any kind of mischief on Cabbage Night and Halloween.  Again, vandalism isn’t cool, but you know you’ve gone a little too far when buying eggs, toilet paper, or shaving cream is banned from early October til sometime after Thanksgiving, just to be safe.  At least I have an excuse for not shaving my legs.

The first group to ring my bell is a group of four boys. They don’t appear to be wearing costumes and they are carrying their loot in yellow plastic bags from ShopRite.  They look at me with blank stares as I offer them my big blue bowl of second-rate candy.  I wish them a Happy Halloween to which I receive a grunt or two as they run off. Two days ago, my nephew informed me that I “wouldn’t understand” his costume, as if I’m so ancient and uncool to not to be in tune with any pop culture past 1984. (He was right. I had to Google it.)  I’m hoping the next batch will be some kids who put at least a little effort into it.

The neighbors across the street have simply thrown what looks like a pillowcase of candy on their front stoop, and I watch in horror as the same boys riffle through it, grabbing and pulling and screaming as if they were in Puerto Rico getting rolls of paper towels thrown at them.  What’s happened to Halloween?

The next group on the stoop is a bunch of younger children, who I am convinced are about to open up my front door and storm in. I’m in the bathroom when I hear an army of pint-sized candy-nappers banging and yelling, “OPEN THE DOOR!” My mother would have thrown them all off the stoop.   They are dressed in store-bought costumes, which are cute, if not a little lazy. They all yell, “Trick or Treat!” and say thank you as I hand them candies that are 1/8 the size they used to be. The little boy dressed like a cow proceeds to fall down my concrete steps and all I can see is his parents sitting on the beach in Turks and Caicos with my 401K. He is OK, though, and I toss him an extra Milky Way as hush money.

I sit back down in my tv room, tapping away at some actual work and in approximately 8 and ½ minutes, completely forget that it’s Halloween.  The doorbell rings again, and I am perplexed, wondering who could be calling on me. I shuffle to the door and it’s the kids from down the street. I’ve known their dad since I was three, and they are all very polite and call me Karen and say please and thank you.  They have homemade costumes on and they restore my faith in humanity.

I remind myself out loud that I’m not required to palm three candy bars each time I walk through the kitchen. They don’t taste good but I down a few anyway.

It’s now T-minus three hours before I can turn out the porch light and call it a night.  Another large group of little ones beckon, I slam another Snickers in my gullet, and greet them with feigned enthusiasm. I’ve taken out the screen from the door, so I can simply hand out the candy through the opening. They all think it’s funny, including the moms, but it’s what my mother used to do because she was so afraid of kids falling backwards down the steps, trying to get out of the way of the door. (See part about my 401K.) Before I can even dole out the first piece, a SpiderMan who likely has to buy his clothes in the husky section, grabs a meaty handful of about 7 candies. “Wow,” I say to the little cavone. “You’re going to take all of those?” “YES,” he says without looking up. “Oh, you don’t think you want to share any with your friends who are only taking one? You know, you might clean me out here,” I say to this little Augustus Gloop. “NO!” he yells as he runs down my front yard, whooping and bragging to his friends about all the candy he has collected thus far. I look at his mother, standing in the driveway, and I’m suddenly paralyzed with fear at the thought that this little Michelin Man will be the one to take care of me in the nursing home. And he will probably steal my lunch.

I hear some leaves rustling so I hang out by the door, preparing myself for the next assault on my candy and my sense of fun and decency. A little boy dressed in scrubs, but with an inexplicable silver streak spray-painted on his head is yelling Happy Halloween to me from the street, up the sidewalk, as I’m giving him a candy, and as he is leaving. I have hope for the future.

Another couple of Snickers later, I am so hopped up on sugar that I’m ready to start painting my house.  I pick mercilessly at a chicken leg, and then I feel I have to treat myself with a few more Milky Ways. They are so tiny, I can eat a whole bunch, right? And Snickers have nuts, and nuts have protein!  Although now I’m seriously nervous that if I get a sudden last surge of miscreants dressed as things I don’t know about or worse, the kids who come late with pillowcases dressed in their school football uniforms, I’ll nothing have left to offer them except Shredded Wheat, and that’s going to be awkward.

I get depressed thinking about how sanitized this holiday has become. Halloween is such a fond memory for me. I hope that it still is for today’s kids, although I can’t help but feel like they’re missing out on something. Now they come in huge groups, some of them actually driven around by their parents, grabbing and pawing at cheap candy like it’s their last meal.

I’m up one more time for another batch of Halloweeners who ask me if I have any chocolate. I tell them it’s all chocolate because I like to eat it too, and they stare at me like I have ten heads. Tough audience. One little boy proceeds to lecture me on how he has a peanut allergy and how he can’t take any of my candy because apparently it’s all been contaminated. Now, of course I feel for this kid and for a split-second I think about offering him the Shredded Wheat, but I can’t be held responsible for this. I don’t have any kids. I don’t know about these things. I make a mental note to buy nothing but Skittles next year but then I wonder if some five year old dressed as something from The Walking Dead will express his concern about Red #5.

Defeated, I go back to my work project and some fairly heavy news stories. Soon, the little burg that has become Brave New World will sound a blood-curdling alarm to signal curfew and the rolling up of sidewalks.  I start to think I’m in the clear.

The doorbell rings one more time and I’m pleasantly surprised that it’s my next door neighbor and his little girl. She greets me with a smile and proudly announces that she has just come from a Halloween party with her little friends and came home with her whole bag full of candy. (She holds up her bag and it says Keep Calm and Eat Candy.) She informs me that she is just going around her street now, and maybe she could get another bag! She’s on her mission, but she seems like she is having fun. I’m wondering if I passed the torch to her. I’m wondering if maybe five years from now, she’ll make her costume with stuff she finds in her mom’s closet, fight with her about wearing a coat over it, and just maybe, she’ll egg my house.  And I’ll smile.