My Treat

I walked into the best Halloween party of my life just as Talking Heads started burning down the house.

The first thing I saw was that famous roach, Gregor Samsa, dancing with the pallid Ophelia. Somebody else was dolled up like Edith Wharton. Somebody else was John the Baptist, a blood-spattered cardboard platter cut to fit around his neck. There were a couple of the witches from MacBeth. And Lolita, prepubescent of course.

I was dressed as Madeline. A classmate in a nun’s habit could have passed as Miss Clavell.

There’s nothing like the schizophrenic blend of English graduate students— buttoned-up teaching assistants, lit. crit. snobs and bloodthirsty budding writers—at a Halloween party.

That might not sound like fun to you, but since, these days, the only Halloween parties I’ve gone to have been for kids. Little girls dressed up like Ariel and Belle and Britney Spears. Boys dressed up like Chucky and Jason or Keanu Reeves. It’s not my idea of the high life.

Halloween is pretty much a bust if you’re an adult. You get up and down to answer the doorbell 50 times between 6 and 9, handing out candy to kids you know don’t brush their teeth properly. And then you go to bed praying your car won’t get egged. What kind of fun is that?

Not much.

I think it’s time to reappropriate trick or treat. Trick or treat for grownups.

Remember Amelie from the movie Amelie? I know that she’s a bit of a goody-two-shoes—she goes around spreading all kinds of sweetness and good cheer where it’s deserved—but she’s also got a shadow side. For all the random and sundry bad guys who people her world, she creates clever little punishments. Anonymous ones, of course.

I’m thinking that’s what I’d like to do.

Put a whole new spin on trick or treat.

I bet I’m not alone in knowing people whose cars I’d like to egg or whose mailboxes I’d like to fill with shaving cream. Not that I’d do it, of course. Fine upstanding citizen that I am, it would never do to have the local Lutheran pastor in town court pleading guilty to smashing pumpkins.

But it sure can’t hurt to figure out just who I’d give my treats to and who would end up with tricks.

For the most part, treats are easier. I can think of a half-dozen people right off the top of my head who deserve something tasty.

For my mortgage broker and my financial planner who, between the two of them, have answered more stupid questions from me than from most of their clients combined, a carton of Pay Day bars. Or lots of those mesh bags of foil-wrapped coins.

My hairdresser, who dispenses advice about life while dispensing volumizing products into my hair (to give my hair what she calls “boo-vee-voo-vay”), already keeps stashes of candy around the salon. She should have a boa. I’m sure she already has a one—or maybe several. But you can never have too many boas.

And my dentist. Well, my dentist defies categorization. I usually just tell people he’s nuts. But that’s shorthand for all of the many things he is—driven, compassionate, funny, blunt, outrageous. He’s too good for candy. Plus, there’s the tooth-decay thing. So maybe a copy of Frank Zappa singing, “Moving to Montana soon, gonna be a dental floss tycoon.”

But there’s nothing interesting in hearing about treats, right? It’s the tricks that are more fascinating.

So I would happily deposit a bunch of Sour Patch Kids on the doorstep of a Volvo dealer who sold a car out from under me.

For the plumber who installed a disposal named “Bonecrusher” in my sink, then proceeded to tell me I needed a new $900 pipe to go along with it, I’d send a carton of Lemonheads.

For the wandering raker who promised to rake my lawn, then proceeded to bilk me and a bunch of my neighbors for cash, I’d send bubble gum. Chewed already. Stuck to the soles of his shoes to slow him down a bit.

You know, I’m not fundamentally a vengeful person, but I think I could get into this. Unwrapped York Peppermint Patties left on the seats of coworkers you didn’t like. Packages of Sugar Babies sent anonymously to deadbeat dads. Curses spelled out in candy corn. Gummy worms coated in vegetable oil and slipped into the pockets of people you were mad at.

And there is probably a whole language of candy out there to be applied to elected officials, both sweet and sour.

This could be a whole new Halloween tradition.

For now, though, I’ll keep on handing out treats to those who treat me well: Godiva chocolates for the woman who drives my daughter to her job each time I’m too busy; Bob the Builder suckers for my car-shopping coach; Butterfingers for my massage therapist; Swedish fish for the Norwegian who installed my stove; chocolate Ice Cubes for the ones behind the counter at Starbucks who remember my face and my order, Jelly Bellys for anybody with a belly laugh.

I know, it’s all kind of tame. Tomorrow is Halloween and all I can think of is cute tricks and treacle-y treats. Maybe I’m losing my edge. Maybe it’s time I put on a nightgown and a circlet of flowers, powder my face rice-paper white and run off in search of the madly dancing Gregor Samsa.

—Jo Page

You can contact Jo Page at jopage@graceniska.org.

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