Another year of Halloween festivities come and gone. We ended up attending FOUR Halloween parties (Joy School, our old congregation, my parent's congregation, our current congregation), followed by a three-hour trick or treat fest as a family. (We left a bowl on the porch. This will come up again later.)
Man. I've never seen my girls so united in excitement and purpose! Mimi's nobody's fool- she saw what Ernie was doing, and demanded to be let loose from the that stroller. She wanted to pound the pavement!
Our last stop was our neighbor's- we had a nice chat on the porch while Mimi practiced climbing on and off a chair and Ernie sorted through her candy. We talked about their son's track team, the number of trick-or-treaters this year, and how impressed we were with the amount of integrity trick-or-treaters have when it comes to taking a piece of candy from a "porch bowl" and leaving the rest. As we're discussing this, a large group of children (ages 4-15?) climbs the steps to the front door. As the last of the kids is leaving, Ernie starts to sob "Daddy! They're taking my candy!"
They were filling their bags from the candy Ernie had stashed in the bottom basket of the stroller!
Oooh, I got my Mama Bear voice on as I have never done before. "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING? PUT THAT BACK!" They ran as fast as their legs could carry them to the house across the street- while I'm asking a woman coming up slowly behind them "Are you with those kids? They just stole my daughter's candy!" my neighbor has HIS best Papa Bear voice on "Come back here! Yes, you- the nurse. Come back here!" Two girls, maybe 10 and 15, came back and apologized and threw a few pieces back into our stroller.
Now. It's not that Ernie needed that candy, she had plenty. But the girls said "Sorry, we thought it was free for the taking." You thought what, now? Either they were just caught up in the HFCS-crazed spirit of the Holiday (in which case I shouldn't have yelled so loud, but they were still incredibly silly) or they're mean. I mean, stealing candy from a baby on Halloween is about as low as you can get. And, the candy was in the bottom basket of a black stroller in an unlit driveway. You'd really have to look to see anything down there. There's a small chance our neighbor was handing out candy at the front door, AND the driveway, but...
And now, of course, Ernie can't stop talking about it. After giving us the blow-by-blow at least 10 times, Daddy reminded her "Ernie...they apologized. Now that means we need to forgive and forget, OK?"
That's fine, she'll just switch angles. Knowing that our Joy School lessons were all about expressing our feelings this week, she tried "Mommy? When those big kids took my candy, I felt sad."
Big Kids with Questionable Ethics aside, we had an absolute blast. And now...what do you do with all that candy?
4 comments:
I SO wish I hadn't read this story at 1:23 AM. ;-) I was up an extra 45 minutes, indignant! LOL
Those girls knew what they were doing was wrong or they wouldn't have run when you called out.
It's very funny that your little guy kept repeating it all, isn't it amusing what's remembered?
unbelievable!
I'm trying to think back to when I was that age. I don't think I would have DARED to do such a think. Besides, I would have known that that was wrong. So wrong!
Ooh, that is evil. Not Halloween evil, just regular evil. :) I had to laugh about your daughter repeating the offending tale over and over. Jarrah loves that, too. Once I was about to go at a four-way stop when someone took my turn and I made a clucking sound. She said "What, Mama?" I said, "That guy took my turn." I SWEAR that's all I said. :) She said "Why he bad guy?" "Not bad guy, that guy." But I heard about the "bad guy" for THREE DAYS. "Why bad guy take your turn, Mama? Why bad guy do that?" It was sort of hilarious and sort of maddening. ;)
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