Ted's Blog

I started this as a reply to Kelly's blog entry about Halloween, but it got to be too long so I decided it should be it's own entry. Oh well, that's one less comment for Kelly and one more entry for me . . .

I ask people what they are as much as a I can. Sometimes the answers are pretty funny, even though I didn't have any Zombie Pirate Clowns come by. I had a record number of people come by without costumes. Three of them showed up and I asked what they were dressed as. They said "Nuthin'". And I said well, you don't get any candy. They looked shocked as I shut the door.

I wound up giving out Sweetarts, Starburst, and Sugar Babies. I wanted to get the Sweetarts that come in the paper package with 3 pellets because they are so cheap. I figured they would be good for people who didn't wear costumes. But this year the store didn't have those so I had fun-size packages which had about 10 or so in each package. I had some left over packages of saltines from getting chili at Wendy's the night before so I thought that would be good to give to people without costumes. I put them in the bowl with the candy and gave one of the packages to a girl without a costume. I don't think she noticed. Then in the next group this guy (in a costume) says "Oh, man saltines! I love saltines!" so I gave him the other package of saltines.

The funniest group was a little girl in an Incredibles outfit. Her Dad was with her too and *he* was wearing an Incredibles outfit. But then behind them was the girl's little brother who could hardly walk, also in an Incredibles outfit and then behind him, the mother Incredibles! So it was the whole family.

Avondale was a zoo as always. There are just tons and tons of people. I went through half of my candy in the first half hour and saw only one white kid, so I know most of the people weren't local. Later on I got a better mix of people but ran out of candy after about an hour and a half. That's okay because thirty minutes later (at 8:00) Halloween officially ends and the police drive around with their bullhorns telling people to go home. It turns out the Starbursts were pretty cheapo because each pack only had two squares, but I had a lot of them so the candy held out longer than in most years.