Halloween back in the day

When I was a kid halloween was the MASSIVE event for me and my crew. It ranked right up there with birthdays and xmas. For us "halloween" was synonymous with "candyrun". I mean costumes played a big role but the ultimate prize was the crop. If you hustled enough you could stock up for months! When it came to the sweet shits we horded like there was no tomorrow. Rule number one? Go as long and as hard as possible. We could only take advantage of this golden opportunity once a year...

Security
Protecting your haul was almost like a post apocalyptic situation where no one but your closest friends could be trusted. Not even my family was privy to the true location of my bounty - I used to leave a bowl of shit candy (black licorice, raisins, rockets, marshmallow stuffed shit, etc) in my closet as a decoy cause my mom and sister used to steal my shit. The real stash was under my bottom dresser drawer. That was when I was old enough to protect my shit. In prior years my mom would "check" my candy under the guise of "safety" (searching for shit I was allergic to, poisons, razor blades, etc...). After she was done I was always ass out of mars bars. She claimed it's cause mars bars had peanuts in them. Bullshit! There's no peanuts in mars just admit you like them! In fact you have cash go out and buy your own. You shouldn't be robbing your son. Goddamn crook.

Costumes
My mom used to insist on choosing/making my costumes every year until I was about 8 and I put my foot down and told her I wanted to choose. Ordinarily the costumes were ok (robot, bat, dracula)... One year I asked to be a ninja. Due to my moms shit sewing abilities and her lack of understanding what a ninja was I ended up looking like a black ghost with a sword and a belt. She had no qualms whatsoever letting me leave the house looking retarded. No one knew what I was supposed to be... That really slowed down my night (see below under "What are you supposed to be?"). The next year her seamstress friend rita decided to fix the costume so the ninja suit it would look more authentic. It ended up looking fantastic! The only issue was that year was I wanted to be a cop. We had all decided to be cops that year... My mom insisted I wear the fixed ninja suit - she felt bad about the time rita had put into it so to discourage me she only bought me the badge, gun and cuffs. I of course wanted the hat and shirt but she said no. Finally she convinced me to combine the costumes. We pinned the badge to my chest and tucked the cuffs, gun and sword into my belt. I became the worlds first ninja cop! It ended up being a cool costume and my crew were all jealous. But of course she insisted I wear my jacket! Why would I want to wear a jacket??? How would anyone see my badass costume? That's when I started bringing an extra pillow case to ditch my coat in.

Hitting the streets
Thanks to my friend scotty boy's 2 older brothers we managed to come up with a kick ass trick or treat system. As soon as it got pitch black we would hit the streets and link up at the park by scotty boy's house - it was me, scotty boy, jay o and white rob (as opposed to black rob). Black rob would always want to come out with us but the rule was we never go out in a group of more than 4. You get more loot that way. Plus no one liked black rob anyway...

We would use pillow cases - plastic bags were for amateurs. Pillow cases were stronger plus they held more.

Jay o was the flash light holder. Only because he insisted - he was obsessed with star wars and would pretend it was a light sabre.

Since scotty boy and white rob were the biggest of us four they were the look outs/muscle - we had to make sure there weren't any bigger kids lurking around to mug us for our shit. *Note - Scotty boy would always have a 2 foot long mini baseball bat in his bag which his brother gave him for protection.

I was the self designated door bell ringer - I made sure to only ring the door when we were all together on the stoop and not a second earlier so we all got approximately the same amount of loot.

We hated houses where punkasses would answer the door to say they had no candy left. Out of stock? Then turn off your goddamn lights and don't waste my time! This is a universal halloween rule.

We also hated the people who like talking to trick or treaters at the door. Whats up with those fools? "Oh I like your costume..." "Give me a trick..." etc... The worst by far was "What are you supposed to be?". What am I supposed to be?! I'm supposed to be at the next house by now so get the candy in the bag! Halloween is about survival of the fittest and we need to keep the ball rolling.

Mrs Johnson's house was one house we would always make sure to hit early. She gave out the good shit. Full sized chocolate bars! Most of the time they were mars, twix or 3 musketeers. And the bonus? A lot of kids in the neighborhood didn't know she had a tenant that lived in the basement. The entrance to his place was in the back - he was one of those lazy peeps who would put out a bowl of candy and would write on it "please take one". Pft! Please take one? That's crazy talk. We would take it all. I would even take the bowl. That's what I would use to put my shit candy in that my family used to steal (as mentioned above)

Post evening wrap up
Trading! We'd end up back where we started at scotty boy's house, dump our candy into individual piles and begin negotiations. We'd always try and convince each other that certain treats weren't good just to get the upper hand in the trade. White rob would aways try and get rid of all his black stuff but he would have to sweeten the deal by throwing in something good. Since I was allergic to peanuts I would trade away all my peanut laced crap. I was a power trader - those fools loved all that peanut shit. Jay o hated anything with marshmallows. Scotty liked mostly everything so he was easy to deal with. Then we'd break out and go home to start planning next year's costumes.

Frank "Ninja Cop" Breaker