Halloween Hijinx
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For the type of kid I was, I managed to not get into too much trouble with the law. Mostly I had issues with school because, frankly, it was boring and didn’t challenge me at all. The lone exception to my clean record would be the time I got busted for theft over $5,000 while on a shoplifting spree with a couple of buddies, but that is a story for another day. Even on Halloween, when most kids that were my age would get up to cheeky shenanigans, I kept my nose pretty clean. I was never into damaging property because it was pretty fucking pointless to break a car window and not steal anything so I leaned more towards the prank-pulling side of things.
My best friend in elementary school was the rich kid. His dad owned a successful car dealership and, as such, the kid had everything you could imagine and lead a pretty entitled life. Of course, this made him a bit of an outcast so we immediately chummed up, as I was a bit of a loner myself. My buddy’s dad was an avid hunter so my friend had all sorts of camouflage fatigues and toy guns, which would explain why we went as soldiers for about three years running. Of course these particular costumes had numerous advantages. As it was the eighties, you had any number of action movie characters at your disposal if subjected to any sort of rigorous questioning, so the first advantage; candy. Another is that there were quite a few stands of brush around our neighborhood and the costumes would allow us to be almost invisible to the third or fourth graders who would be walking down the street in sugar fueled ecstasy only to have we two emerge from our cover with terrible screams of death and soul reaping. Most of the time this had the desired effect of immediate and explosive bowel evacuation, but there were those occasions when we would badly miscalculate and not see the parents a few paces behind. There was also the time that we tried it on older kids and, while the effect was the same initially, longer legs run faster. Because of that, I now know the terrible taste of dog turd. The last advantage was that they allowed you to hide in a darkened corner on a well lit street and observe your handiwork.
Pranks like those mentioned were my bagel and cream cheese. Nothing too serious, maybe a traffic sign removed and placed strategically in the roadway, or the smashing of pumpkins, but I was always drawn to the simple majesty of the classic egg. It’s quick, it’s effective and it’s a fitting punishment for those adults who decide that they are beyond the accepted rules of Halloween. Of course I didn’t use just any type of eggs, as everything I do needs to be Bobbied-up a touch. These eggs were specially prepared weeks in advance for the occasion. You see, when an egg is thrown and makes contact with a solid object it usually makes a fairly loud “thwack!” which alerts the inhabitants of a residence to the violation of their sanctity. Also, they cannot be used on windows, as if they make impact with either end, the window will surely break. This alerts the occupants of the domicile even more quickly to the bombardment and can sometimes result in charges for vandalism. So, as I was a bit of a science nerd, I soaked my eggs in a lovely bath of cider vinegar. As most of you are aware, egg’s shells are primarily composed of calcium carbonate. When calcium carbonate comes into contact with an acid, a reaction occurs which forms a salt, carbon dioxide and water. The other effect it has is that it makes the shell of the egg rubbery. This process takes time to perfect as you want to end up with an egg that’s shell is thin enough to burst like a water balloon upon contact, yet retains enough elasticity to be able to be handled in a reasonably rough manner without exploding in your hand. Try it it’s science!
The end product is an egg that is transportable, window friendly, and explodes like a head being scanned. Did I forget to mention that they’re rotten too? Why yes, due to the rubberizing process and an abundance of time outside unrefrigerated, the eggs are now a glorious mess of rancid, unfertilized chicken fetus. Given the physical qualities of the egg, you could now essentially carpet bomb a house with no one the wiser. The one drawback is that, as this was stealthy and ninja-like shit, you may have to wait a while for some trick or treaters to come around so that the owner of the domicile has to open the door to admire your handiwork. Of course they are undeniably impressed with the putrid aroma of the visceral hash that is sliding its way down their door or window and they let you know with any of a variety of curses. You actually got double the points if there were little and still innocent children at the door during the tirade. If you got really lucky no more people would come around and, if the target lived near you, you could enjoy their reaction to your masterpiece of congealed horror the next morning after it had dried. Good times. Good times.
Like I said, nothing too bad. But as an adult, I’m sure to have good candy and not ask too many questions of the various denizens of hell that visit my door. Kids are evil, yo. What kind of childish shenanigans did you angelic examples of youth get up to?
Robert Scott is un-redeemably Canadian and lives on the frozen tundra amongst the moose. He has no idea what he’s doing here and reserves the right to make grand claims, incoherent ramblings and ridiculous generalizations then change his mind. He is steadfast in his attempt to prove that Canadians aren’t nice or polite and looks forward to the day when America becomes a province.
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Comments
Posted by: The Other Agent Johnson at October 14, 2010 8:27 PM
I have to say, I always thought pumpkin smashing was a seriously asshole-ish thing to do. Especially if they're pumpkins that people carved. They worked hard on that shit. And their kids probably helped and were super proud. It's a lousy, lazy prank.
Personally, I was always a fan of the classics. Burning paper bags full of rusty razor blades. Breaking into cars and filling them with wasps. Setting fire to houses. Kidnapping babies.