Wolf Packs and Candy Gold Theme #20

           The troupe of happy, noisy, and sugar cannibal children all below the age of 8 consisting of about six of these little rascals walked up the dimly lit street. The troupe equipped with ramen bowl sized plastic jack-o-lanterns to hold candy in, glitter soaked costumes modeled after fairies and princesses, costumes of superheroes, loud shrieking voices and the bright smiles to beg with. I wore a gray simple O’Neill brand shirt, black athletic shorts and rubber slippers. Halloween was past my age in my opinion where I dress up like a fool to beg for candy. I didn’t want to subject my self to this. Even if I had wore a costume or not, in the end I got candy anyway. Troupes of children walked house to house yelling the old jeer,
           “Trick or Treat!” all of them in unison would scream, begging for what I called diabetes and cavities in a bite size package. Like packs of wolves singling in on a helpless doe. There was no real obvious difference between my pack and the other packs. Just different costumes and different voices, but it was hard to differentiate because they all yelled in unison. They all had some type of pack leader, someone like me who was either forced to look after them or volunteered. I was forced, since according to my father I had nothing better to do at the house where the Halloween party was. The house belonged to my dads girlfriends relative or friend, something like that. I was accompanied by brave souls, the parents of the little girls and boys of my troupe.
           Eventually I got tired of hearing not only my wolf pack jeer for candy but other packs as well. Tired of hearing them say Trick-or-Treat, tired of hearing my pack complain over who got more candy, tired of the parents trailing behind talking about other people I didn’t know or their dismal jobs or the givers of the free diabetes asking each child what they’re supposed to be even though this one was a robot, that one was Batman she’s a princess and he’s Darth Vader. Eventually I cam to the conclusion to make it so I actually get something out of this why not join in for free candy, I partook in the begging of candy from random strangers. The pack’s method of choosing houses wasn’t unique. In fact it was to be expected from children their age. Their conjecture, hypothesis hell even their damn guess was, If a house had a lot of decoration, lights and/or ornaments. then the payload would be big.
           Of course as far as I knew decorations had nothing to do with it. Decorations doesn’t mean more candy but I kept that to my self as to not make the kids cry and the parents mad. I eventually partook in this tradition of begging for candy because of two candies that caught my eye after the fifth house we ransacked. Wrapped in a bright sun colored cellophane wrapper, yellow orange color hard candy, and its unique sugar flavor, Butterscotch was candy number one that caught my interest out of all of them. Not Hersey, Crunch, Twix or any other candy except one more. Wrapped in a bright electrifying blue and yellow wax paper, with a giant pink bubble as its logo and its rubber like texture, bright pink little half inch diameter and one inch rolls of bubble gum. The gold of candy in my eyes, these were the only candies I would eat from the loot I received. Everything else I would trade to my pack as they were young naïve and driven by the addiction of sugar. I had a problem for gum from when I was younger and just the sudden richness in flavor form butterscotch drove me sugar hungry.
           Any house that allowed trick-or-treaters to pick their own candy from a bowl, I looked very thoroughly for butterscotch and bubble gum. After I located I tried to pick as much as I could of the little specks of gold in the dirt of the other candy brands. Killing time between houses was an interesting task that crept up on me and the chaperones. Holding the candy in my pockets and the front part of my shirt which I formed to make a little tarp to carry the candy was a hard enough task without letting it all drop to the ground. We had to play I spy, think of riddles and just have small talk about TV shows. While I watched cartoons like the kids they didn’t watch things like Dragon Ball Z, Yu Yu Hakusho, Naruto, and Courage the Cowardly Dog. The children and I didn’t really talk I just watched them and listened to things about Dora the Explorer.
           While the parents and pack conversed among their own age group themselves in conversation about things like Dora the Explorer and Spongebob, I just watched silently supporting my candy in the excess of my shirt and observed other packs. They all tried to trade candy while walking, dropping a few pieces here and there. They all laughed and giggled. The packs of only females were particularly interesting to watch. Most of them wore pink doused in glitter and had their mothers with them. It was quite the sight to behold.With their fairy wands and fairy wings princess gowns gaudy accessories. I contemplated the meaning and origin of the term “Trick-o-Treat,” which I had looked up the night before.
           Trick-o-Treat was a term used by the poor in England. House to house (much like my troupe) families would go singing songs and saying prayers in honor of the dead in exchange for fruit, cakes or change. We walked and laughed as I kept thinking how much this concept has changed. People don’t go trick-or-treating to honor the dead. They go to feed their sweet tooth Halloween to most parents and children alike is a night when you just get buckets of free candy, the actual concept of it is lost.
           As our troupe walked back out of the valley and picking up on a few houses we missed, getting what was left in the peoples home the children started to get tired yawning and complaining how much their feet hurt. We tried to go back to houses we previously visited about one hour earlier. Most of the time it worked; they didn’t recognize us. We arrived at the petite, one story, white house, that had enough space for fourteen adults and six children. In the garage we unloaded our loot on a wooden table.
           Each person of the pack took either a corner or a little mid section to dump out their loot. I chose the very corner because I didn’t want my candy spilling into other candy piles. I waited to pour mine out. Once I had emptied out my shirt and pockets I looked at the other piles for what I called “candy gold.” Since I was significantly older in the sense I was in 8th grade they were in 1st grade. I used my wit to trick them. I tried to trade candy based on size. For one mini Crunch two bubble gum or butterscotch. I hated chocolate and I still do today. I would try to give off those type of deals that would allow me to only give out bare minimum of my chocolate so I could use for trades later on. But alas they started to catch on because I didn’t target one child I targeted all of them. I didn’t care I really didn’t know of them I just wanted my candy gold. They started jacking up their price.
           At first the parents weren’t paying attention but then they started to hear loud shrieking when I would try to cut them one of my deals and not theirs. They would throw a fit and in the end get their way once they had their parents behind them. At least most of my pile was made of my gold. I wanted to get rid of more impurities. I did the dumbest thing ever, I tried stealing my gold from the other piles. Swinging my hand in very obvious faked motion I would knock one or two pieces into an opposing pile and pilfer in that way. It worked once and then I was caught. One of the parents pulled me aside and told me very sternly, “Try that again and I’ll tell Gerry (my dads girlfriend),” I figure I got what I wanted, I threw the impurities into the middle of the old dilapidated table for free game, stuffed the butterscotch into my right pocket and the gum into my left.
           I got up and walked into the house through the screen door. I took a piece gum from my left pocket, unwrapped it, and chewed. The flavor was just how I remembered, sweet and tangy. I crumpled the yellow paper and threw it in the nearest garbage can. Trying to avoid awkward conversation with my father about how the trick or treating went because I would have figured by now my mischievous plots must have reached his ear. And to no surprise they did I avoided him for about an hour hiding in one of the back rooms just watching TV with some of the older kids of the group who had tried to get away from the annoying young ones. I didn’t see it coming the stern talk but I should’ve known better.
           My dad caught me while I was dozing off and said “Lets go.” 11pm read the digital clock on the dresser. In the car I was surprised by a “Wake up!” in the car. I thought C%@$ I’m done for. My dad asked If I felt bad I said yes. He said give me the candy and so I did. He rolled down the window stopped near a garbage can on the sidewalk and dumped it in. Truthfully I was.