I Trick or Treated In June And Almost Got Arrested

By Cole Knox

When we heard a door open as we walked away from the quiet residence, we were filled with joy as we thought we might finally acquire some candy. The other houses we had visited were without the sugary treats one would usually find on a regular Halloween evening. The joy was brief as it quickly turned to fear as we turned to see an old woman with a distasteful glare gazing down at us from her porch. She started to question what it was that we were doing and who we were.

Many people are aware of Halloween and are active participants of its annual tradition where one would dress up in unusual costumes and parade from door to door requesting candy from house residents. What people may not be aware of, is that participating in these traditions outside of the time in which it is considered “normal” can spark fear in others and cause them to panic as an abundance of masked figures at your doorstep armed with a bat and a meat tenderizer is most likely the last thing you'd want to see at 9pm on a Sunday. When I was in about fifth or sixth grade, I was blissfully unaware of the fear that would accompany a group of trick or treaters in the middle of the summer. So when the idea was brought to our group that night, neither I nor my friends saw anything wrong with the idea and completely endorsed it.

It all started on a June evening at a brightly colored park just north of Bilo on Crawford Avenue. Me and two of my associates, Sall Pattison and Emily Lefferts, were congregating before making the executive decision to relocate. We stood from our respective places on the vibrant playground and walked through the dingy metal gate. We traversed down the cracked and severed sidewalk before a hearse pulled up next to us and a woman rolled down her window. She began to accuse us three of defacing the park, under the impression we were there for the sole purpose of destruction and mischief, despite it being a frequent hangout for us. We denied these claims as we had done nothing of the sort and had only loitered there for a short amount of time. These false accusations had enraged us so much so we wanted to take revenge on the woman. (I do not condone these actions, but I was but a reckless child at the time of this story.) My associates and I decided to return to Sall’s house, the one whom we were to stay with, and recruit their sister, Jordan Pattison for some small hijinx.

Our original intention was to scare the woman who had scolded us, so we donned some wonderful disguises. I wore a mask reminiscent of a bear with a dark hoodie and held a meat tenderizer, Jordan wore bandages with the appearance of blood accompanied by a bat (this bat was not used in any sort of harmful manor and was purely for show), Sall wore a werewolf costume, and Emily went without her glasses and wore a black wig and a grey hoodie. Fortunately our plan to scare the woman had failed as we had found out she lived in one of those homes for old people, although this didn’t stop us from making some sort of chaos. We stared down at the women's home, when in a fit of rage I hit my meat tenderizer on the guard rail beside the road, causing a long ring to boom through the air. In a panic, me and my entourage fled the scene, finding ourselves in a new, unfamiliar neighborhood.

At this point, one of us had brought up the idea of going trick or treating. Being the young naive children we were, we had no quarrel with the idea. We conveyed from house to house knocking on doors and requesting candy from a total of three people with ⅔ answering the door. Suddenly, Jordan recalled a house in which she had once visited on a previous Halloween, stating of its high quality full sized candy bars. We agreed happily to the enticing sound of candy.

It took some time, but we conveyed down the road and arrived at a yellow brick house with stairs leading up to it. We walked up the stairs and knocked on the door to no avail. We knocked again before resigning and starting to walk away before we heard the sound of a door behind us. The brief joy we felt accompanied by the idea of the sugary confectionery we might receive was quickly replaced with fear as we turned to see the heinous expression of the catty old woman staring down at us from her porch balcony. She made false accusations of malicious intent and interrogated us, forcing us to give her our names and where we lived, claiming that she would report us to the police.

After our encounter with the absolutely reprehensible woman, we returned to the house in which we were staying that evening. When the woman called the police, they accused the hag of insanity. This experience, however, taught me as well as my friends that timing matters, and it may not be appropriate to do certain things at certain times.