Trick or Treating

This Halloween created quite a bit of inner turmoil for me. There were a lot of obstacles in the way of my celebrating the holiday. But it was also my senior-year Halloween, possibly my last chance to really do Halloween appropriately. So on Wednesday, despite being in my twenties, despite my evening class from 6:30 to 10, despite the influx of crime in the area, I braved the balmy fall night, headed out into the darkness and went trick-or-treating.

I haven't missed a year yet, and I wasn't about to break that streak, especially considering my age. Graduating college will bring with it a fate worse than not being able to drink constantly and having to wake up before noon. Next year, I might actually be too old to go trick-or-treating.

I do understand that I'm already pushing it. But as someone who is slowly realizing her last growth spurt isn't coming, permanently dooming her to a childlike 5-foot stature, I figure I'm entitled to some free candy at least once a year. C'mon, I can barely reach most shelves. I'm owed something!

Plus, as long as I'm still a student, I can easily justify myself. Trick-or-treating is for children, and children go to school. I also go to school and, therefore, should have no moral qualms or concerns about going trick-or-treating. I certainly can't find any holes in that logical argument!

I'm just not sure justification will be so lucid next year when I'm out of school, working some depressing grown-up's job. Something about rushing home after a long day at the office to change out of my take-charge pantsuit and into my totally awesome Ninja Turtles costume just seems wrong.

And no, I don't consider going trick-or-treating with kids of my own someday to be a chance to relive Halloween fun. That won't be real trick-or-treating. I imagine parenthood would force me to spend the entire holiday making sure nobody gets kidnapped or poisoned. How fun! I bet parents don't even get to eat chocolate until they vomit or steal candy from the smaller, weaker, less-experienced children. No, Halloween won't be the same at all.

Now, before you condemn me as a greedy, gluttonous, con-artist-thief, let me inform you that it's not all candy and costumes. I've had to face a fair amount of adversity because of my insistence on trick-or-treating well into legal adulthood.

First off, it's hard to convince your friends to go with you. Some would rather go to bars and get drunk. Others feel that, as appropriately sized people, the situation would prove too awkward to be fun.

Even if I can convince someone to accompany me, it's hard to get them looking like a child. Masks help. Having them hang back and pretend to be a parent is a little better. But I've found making new, shorter friends to be my best option.

No matter what, awkward situations do result. I guarantee at least once each Halloween I'm made to feel like a jerk. Maybe it happened because some feeble old lady actually believed I was 10. Or maybe because I got caught up in the moment and pushed an actual child out of the way so I could be first to ring the doorbell. It's hard to predict what's going to make me feel my age. However, I have a hunch graduating from college just might. So, I urge the readers still in school, both the short and the tall, to take advantage of the fleeting youth you have left. Halloween may be over this year, but there are always opportunities to act like a child. Throw some stuff at The Diner, use your outdoor voice indoors, play with fireworks. And next Halloween, forget the bars and go trick-or-treating instead. You've got your whole boring, responsibility-filled actual adulthood to spend drinking.

You may see your youth as already having past, but consider this: I've never in all my life been denied trick-or-treating candy. Once, in my junior year of high school, a woman said to me, "Aren't you a little too old for this?" as she dropped a fun-sized Snickers into my pillow case. And while her question may have sent me spinning into a pit of self-loathing, the truth remains: I still got candy.