Night of 2,000 monsters

A few weeks back we got an email from our  friendly neighborhood anti-crime guru. (The same guy who almost got his car stolen, but for the efforts of my bride). He was sending a heads-up to everyone in our neighborhood about being prepared for Halloween. He said we should buy enough candy to feed 2,000 trick-or-treaters, that we should park our cars in the driveway since the streets would be clogged with bumper-to-bumper traffic, and that the neighborhood was hiring 3 off-duty policemen to help with traffic and crowd control.

Although we had seen Halloween in Oak Cliff a couple of years back, I almost didn’t believe that it would be possible for that many kiddos to come down our street. But I took my skepticism to the Dollar General store down the street and stocked up on about 1,500 Tootsie Pops, Milk Duds, Tootsie Rolls, and Smarties. I was certain we would have a ton left over.

Since I didn’t want to miss the fun, I skipped class that night (the last time this semester! I promise. Really.), picked up some Pizza Patron pizza and turned down our street at about 6:30. By that time the melee had begun. Cars were indeed bumper-to-bumper on our street and a line of cars was parked going both ways. I somehow found my way into the driveway, where Chel, Little Mom and Emily were trying to handle the crowd. I got some Halloween music playing outside and joined them.

We saw Spider Man (several times), a variety of witches, some Pokemon characters, many different princesses, several Super Men, even babies in various animal costumes, and then some older kids without costumes who were a little too big to go trick-or-treating. At the busiest point there was a line of kids all the way down our sidewalk to the street. And every house on the block (and probably in our whole neighborhood) had a line that long. All I said for about an hour was, “Happy Halloween. Happy Halloween. Happy Halloween” as we passed out piece after piece of candy.

Alas, we ran out of the goods after about an hour. We had to hustle inside, close the curtains and turn the lights off so people would know we were no longer in business.

Next year, we’re gonna have to get a Sam’s Club membership or something.