I'll put a spell on you

I am fuming. Various members of the community - including local school representatives - have signed a petition, requesting that I refrain from participating in Halloween festivities this year, and let the children circulate in the safety and security of knowing I will not terrify them. I am livid!

This whole “treat” business, argh. It’s bad enough that my own children ask for treats on a daily basis; let alone half the town coming round and demanding them.

We spend most of their young lives telling them never to talk to strangers, let alone take food from them. On Halloween night, however, it’s suddenly OK for children to roam the dark streets in questionable states of dress, shaking a bucket and asking for sweeties from strangers. Are we all utterly mad? Or is this some, sick way of pruning the gift list before Christmas?

Not one of the little devils says “please”, although at least the polite ones say “Happy Halloween”, as they hold out their buckets and peer disappointingly into our selection of leftover Toffee Pennies and Bounty Celebrations from last Christmas.

Last year, I decided ‘if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em’, and dressed-up as a mummy. Yes, that’s right: a full-time working mummy nearing the end of the week, desperate at the climax of Sober October*, trying-but-failing to be a good wife and mother, not even knowing who she really was anymore (but knowing that we were out of bagels and the kitchen bin needed emptying). A mummy in late autumn: is there anything scarier?

I whacked on an old face mask, totally past its use-by date although this worked well as it left a layer of slimy, green residue. For good measure, I decorated my hair with toilet paper (though one doesn’t mess about with toilet paper since Covid, and I made a note to use it properly later on).

And when the youths appeared, I beat them to it. When they unsuspectingly rang the doorbell - thinking they had the upper hand [fools] - I flung it open and screamed “trick or treat!” Flummoxed and trembling slightly, they puzzled over their options and conferred with each other. Tentatively replying “treat”, I answered “thank you very much”, then I lent forward and scooped their hauls into a paint kettle I had found in the garage. “Now sod off!”

Admittedly the teenagers went home crying, but why is it OK for them to threaten neighbours over Haribo but not for me to recover the goods? That stuff’s bad for them anyway; if anything, I was performing a service.

Imagine if magic tricks were actually distributed. Now, they would be worth a lot more than bucket full of gooey crap in terms of resale value. Children nowadays are literally missing a trick.

And today’s costumes; give me strength. What was wrong with a black bin liner with a hole in the top? Witch or wizard, hey presto! JK Rowling was so clever: Harry Potter monopolises not only Halloween but World Book Day.

Gone are the days when Halloween was a good excuse to dress sexy and pretend it was an accident (“This old thing? Oh, stop!” [eyelash flutter]). Now I receive compliments on highly effective deathly make-up and am too embarrassed to say that I haven’t actually put any on.

Then there’s that dangerous Halloween sport of fishing apples out of a large water basin using only your mouth. Death by drowning for fruit you didn’t even want in the first place. Who invented apple-bobbing? Certainly not the French, as no one east of Dover uses a washing-up bowl. FYI an excellent way to irritate continentals is to put a washing-up bowl in their sink, and watch them breathe fire over it, until they inevitably remove it and hurl it out over the apartment balcony.

The road parallel to ours really hates the Halloween brigade. Apparently the residents all club together to buy choc ices, which induce immediate panic in the children because they quickly realise they have to return home to eat them, or they will melt over everything else. Genius.

So this year, the community orders me to stay indoors. Fine, repress me! The sooner this charade is over, the sooner I can start wearing my Christmas jumper again. From 6pm, therefore, I have been shut in an upstairs room, watching Eastenders and keeping out of mischief. Well, let’s see how that works out, shall we? I spy a toilet roll, and I’m not afraid to use it.

*I jest. Sober October would never happen. I could maybe manage between the hours of 9 and 5 (though perhaps that shouldn’t be restricted to October).

Author’s note: I was in such a hurry to publish this that I cooked the socks off a high-velocity cottage pie. The TV chef who wrote the recipe would turn in her grave (if she were dead). It will either be my finest cottage pie, or a very awkward 25 minutes at the dining table later.