Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it, or so they say. Let's hope not. Years ago, when we had bought our house in the Hollywood Hills, the approach of Halloween was met with the glee and anticipation of a grade schooler. Having lived all our adult lives in condos or apartments, we'd never had the imagined joy of decorating for the holiday and handing out candy to countless trick-or-treaters. Now was our chance, and we went whole hog. God knows how much we spent on decorations, but the house was done up to the nines. Halloween that year fell on a week day, so we both arranged to take the afternoon off, all the better to make all the final preparations. That fact that no one else on our narrow, unlit, winding canyon road so much as put out a pumpkin was blindly overlooked in all our excitement. As the sun went down, we lit the candles, cranked up the fog machine and threw on the "spooky music" CD and waited. And waited. And waited. One hour, two hours........ nothing. Finally, around 9, the doorbell rang! Our first (and what would turn out to be, only) trick-or-treater! A little girl from up the hill who was obviously on her way home from trick-or-treating somewhere else. Somewhere lit and safe. My partner had bought a monster mask in which to answer the door, and all the pent up adrenaline got the better of him and when he opened the door he kind of overdid it. The little girl shrieked and burst into tears and turned back to her father who was standing a few feet behind her with their dog. And then the dog freaked out, so now we have a hysterically screaming little girl and a barking, snarling, howling dog. All in all it was a fiasco. We felt so guilty we basically dumped all the candy we had into her bag, which her father was now holding because she wouldn't come anywhere near us.
Which brings us to today. All the decorations from the previous experience had been packed away and forgotten for years until the move. But once the boyfriend saw them, you could see the gleam in his eye... this year will be different! Let's hope so. All the decorations are back up, and he's running around making last minute preparations. I know there are a lot of kids in the neighborhood. There must be. There's a creepy ice cream truck that crawls through the neighborhood everyday around 4, even now that the weather has turned cold. It's not really a truck, but a panel van, the kind you always see on the news when they're talking about child abductions. It slowly prowls the streets, speakers blaring an electronic version of "Turkey in the Straw". Over time the music has become somewhat distorted and has shifted into a minor key, which just amplifies the pedophile vibe. Any parent that would let their children anywhere near it should probably have the kids taken away. But there it is, everyday. Obviously it must be doing some business. So we'll see if the kids come out. I hope so. I don't think we could deal with the crushing disappointment of another busted Halloween.
