Happy Halloween!

Last night was "beggar's night" in my little part of the world. For anybody unfamiliar with that....it's basically Halloween trick-or-treating done on the night before Halloween. I don't know why. Don't ask.

I live in a townhouse complex where people seldom turn on their porch lights to celebrate and kids rarely venture into. I'm happy with both of these. I didn't even buy candy for little beggars. However, to make sure I don't get any visitors, I pretty much turned off every light except of course the laptop and TV. Last night as I was getting my dinner ready (during the prescribed Beggar's Night hours of 6-8 p.m.) when I heard this growing noise coming closer outside. Was it? Could it be? Yes, a hoard. A regular sea of kids between the ages of 10 and 16 swarmed onto my "street."

Now, it was clear this flock of beggars were together and probably from the nearby neighborhood, because none of them were dressed up and all had bags for their loot. One group went up to a home that had lights on (but no porch light inviting such attention), the poor lady opened the door and clearly rejected the group saying she had no candy. Then as they roamed seemingly undaunted into the street again (knocking over her grill in the process) another group went up and did the same thing. At this point I noticed a couple of boys (on the older end of the swarm's age spectrum) loitering near another neighbor's door where a pumpkin was sitting out. The boys moved in closer and then noticed a fairly large black dog staring them down through the glass panels next to the door. They paused and then wandered back out into the street and headed out with the mob toward the next unsuspecting part of the neighborhood.

But then I noticed one brave teen make his decision. I could tell exactly what he was about to do and weighed my options. I could open the window and yell or I could watch silently. I decided to just watch...as this young criminal mastermind in the white hooded sweatshirt put his hood up over his head and sauntered bravely toward the door with the dog. He paused again to check for people inside and then dove for the pumpkin and made a mad dash away. He ran like he'd just stolen something worth more than $3.99. I laughed thinking about how cool he thought he was at that moment and how he thought nobody saw him. Heh.

I'm thinking next year I'll put a rotten pumpkin on my front porch for potential hoodlums to grab. That'll really be fun to watch.