When visiting home over Thanksgiving weekend, I was treated to a story of me as a child. Obviously I was a strange and awesome kid, so most stories about my childhood result in equal parts laughter and head-hanging shame. This story is no different.
For my first "big kid" Halloween, when I was three years old, my mom dressed me up a pumpkin. She dressed me in an adorable orange costume (looks like an orange body suit), handed me a pumpkin basket and painted my face like a jack-o'-lantern before leading me around the block and to my relatives' homes.
This probably inspires an adorable mental image of a blond, blue-eyed joy of a child skipping from door to door, politely asking for Twix bars. Not the case. For one, I hadn't quite figured out how smiling worked yet. So rather than grinning innocently, I would tilt my head back and grin evilly, exposing only my bottom teeth. I've been told the effect was frightening, but all attempts to recreate it now seem to fail.
Plus my black and orange face, which I admit was admirably attempted, was a bit of a disaster, especially when combined with my sneer.
And the best part: I learned over Thanksgiving that rather than knocking on doors like a regular child, or shouting naughty rhymes in order to earn my goodies, I knocked on doors so hard my knuckles were literally bleeding when I got home.
I recently heard on an Estevan radio station that nothing is more frightening than a scary child. Let it be known that I was that child, standing on doorsteps with my knuckles bleeding creepily on the ground, my candy pumpkin full of treats and my mom standing behind me looking apologetic for presenting such a satanic toddler.
Many years later, I'm still a fan of Halloween. Though my knuckles are a little less bloody, I still love eating chocolately treats (not a diet-friendly practice) and I enjoy getting dressed up. I'm concerned that this might be my final year donning a costume, since next Halloween I hope to be a fully-employed contributing member of society and something seems a lot less fun about getting sloppy and going out when I might run into my employers or co-workers. Obviously I have a job right now, but they seem to expect this sort of childish behaviour since I'm a student.
One final note on Halloween: my parents are moving Halloween weekend to their new home. As much as I regret being unable to come help (slight exaggeration), I wish them the best of luck. This is also the first year my dad won't be buying 16 bags of candy to hand to earnest youngsters, thus ending an era of Mom complaining about the leftover candy and Dad keeping careful count of the number of kids who come by in hopes of beating last year's total. Don't worry, Dad, I will come home and take the mini Areo bars from you. It's going to be OK.
Tonaya Marr is a 21-year-old Estevanite living in Regina. Her interests include sleeping in, over-spending and writing hilarious weekly columns. You can reach Tonaya at tonaya.marr@gmail.com or on Twitter @TonayaMarr.
