The Scariest Night Halloween
Chris Cross just can not shake his reputation for falling short. Misunderstandings become twisted and distorted, as they follow him everywhere. He just becomes his own problem until he can sort them out. Often he takes the time to put pen to paper to share his experiences with us.
On one such occasion, Chris recalls the scariest night of the year, Halloween! He declared to his mom that it is unnecessary to provide treats for trick or treaters, since children sre kept out of our gated community. No one can gain to Chris’ community with out knowing the secret gate code. One trying to enter our grounds with out the code can however, call from the gate box to an individual house phone only if they know the house phone number. The home owner can buzz the gates to open. This level of security will discourage all kids from other communities. There just will not be any trick or treaters from outside our community looking around for a hand out, according to Chris.
Florida is full of gated communities from coast to coast. Chris knows that his gated community only has five kids in total living inside his community. They may not even go door to door on Halloween to collect free treats, because no home owner will have their outside lights on. Our community will be in complete darkness with its closed black iron gates. These conditions will keep out all strangers dressed ss little monsters and devilish invaders.
Chris’ mom gladly takes Chris’ advice and buys no Halloween treats. Those candy treats always goes stale. After Halloween the candy has to be pitched in a bin. It does become a big waste of both time and money. After all Chris and his mom have lived in their gated community for fifteen years. Chris and his mom do know what goes on. Chris lets his mother know if any of those five lazy kids should show up on Halloween, each one will receive one green back dollar bill. They can buy their own cand treat. After all, the five dollars would come to about the same amount of money that would have been spent on Halloween candy anyway.
Over the years, Halloween has taken on new traditions. Children go to haunted houses and private parties. Some towns and cities have Halloween parades. The children get dressed up in costumes and parade down a street while people line the way tossing treats at them. Around America, children feel safe to trick or treat at businesses. Those merchants will hand out candy to the children. Most American schools no longer permit their students to attend school in fancy dress on Halloween. Those schools are not allowed to decorate or promote the occasion with any activities such as bobbing for apples or handing out candy. The U. S. A. Constitution demands separation of church and state. It is not politically correct to celebrate Happy Halloween. This is a devilishly sensitive situation indeed.
Chris and his mother, as expected spend a quiet Halloween night until the door bell rings at dusk. Chris opens the door and to his surprise, there standing before him is a child dressed in a clown’s suit. “Trick or treat”. The first green back dollar bill is dispersed. Just as the door is closed, another ring. This time there are three monsters with their hands out. Three more bills disappear into the night. About five minutes later, Chris has to go to the front door again. This time someone is pounding on the door. There standing in front of Chris is a kid dressed in a football outfit. The kid holds out his helmet and receives the last dollar bill from Chris. He tells his mom to relax as their Halloween night is over. Their commitment to those five lazy local trick or treaters nas been satisfied. They are free. Free to enjoy the rest of their Halloween evening.
Chris did not realize that behind his back those five little monsters used their cell phones to text their friends about “the treasure house” , they found full of money. Soon Chris had tl answer the door. This time Chris had to up the annie and handed out five dollar bills! The door bell never stopped ringing. Chris just knew that those kids would have played tricks if he did not come have a treat. Of course, this new offering of a fiver put new spark on the fire. More and more kids appeared at his front door for a hand out! A line of kids went around the block. It seemed like hundreds came out of the wood work. Cars were pulling up behind Chris’ home to drop off kids on the public road that was behind. The kids sidetracked their parents on their way to parties and haunted houses to visit the “money house”. The kids had only to walk around the security gates to gain access to Chris’ front door.
Chris soon ran out of five dollar bills. Chris and his mom had no other choice but to turn off all the lights and hide in complete darkness. For hours they spoke not one word for fear someone would hear them. He two of them would tremble and shake at the least sound of a car door shutting. Every creak and noise no matter how loud terrified them as they looked at each other crouched down on the floor below the window sills. They imagined all sorts of terrible tricks the
kids could play on them. Was their home being pelted with rotten eggs? Worse yet, maybe those horrible kids were taking small stones and scratching long marks on their car. Maybe those trick or treaters were spray painting all over their home. Poor Chris and his mom ended up plain scared and very apprehensive as the hours slowly passed.
Lesson learned. Chris apologized to his mom. He underestimated the significance of cell phones. Chris got caught big time. He promised his mom, when next Halloween comes around he will be ready with bags of candy treats.