Children everywhere are making Halloween plans while bags of candy & costumes line the aisles at every store in town.  Costumes tend to be fairly elaborate these days, wouldn’t you say?  When my siblings and I were young, our Halloween costumes were planned over an early dinner before Trick-or-Treating.  First, we had to dress in layers — the weather is chilly in Pennsylvania.  After we donned our long johns and turtlenecks, we would raid the dress up box and our parents’ closets.  Maybe you’d be a clown or a farmer or a baseball playing farmer clown.  The possibilities were endless. 

Trick-or-Treating carried on into our teens.  My mother never told us that we were too old to go out.  We were instructed to behave, avoid shenanigans, & be sure to share the chocolate.  One year, A & I dressed like pumpkins with our 50 cent leaf bags from Wal-Mart.  Where we got the green tights is still a mystery.  That same year, we also ditched our initial costumes and did a second round as ghosts.  We were such jerks. 

In high school, some kids received a car for their 16th birthday, but that was not the case in my household.  We had two cars — a light blue, 1986 full size Oldsmobile station wagon and this:

 

My father bought this car from my great-grandmother’s brother for $750.  It was a V8 with a 450 under the hood, which in girl terms means, “touch the gas, go real fast”.  It only came with a side mirror on the driver’s side, so I learned to parallel park without a side mirror — I am a parking genius.  My dad taught me to drive backwards figure eights in “The Beast” before I was legal to drive. 

Return with me now to Halloween.  It was 1997 (or was it ’96?), A & I had just made our rounds trick-or-treating and went back to The Beast to warm our tootsies.  The rest of our friends, who were apparently too cool to beg for candy in the streets, were waiting for us to hang out and watch a movie.  A scary movie.  A very scary movie with whacked children in cornfields.  But before we arrived at B’s house, we or I (since I was behind the wheel) decided it might be fun to peel out & fishtail around a little bit.  We had it perfected.  When you’re 16, you really don’t think about all the what-ifs.  So we had ourselves a bit of a thrill ride!

Movie time.  Scary time.  Traumatized.  Nightmares to come.  Time to go home. 

Hee. Hee.  Let’s peel out one more time and try to freak each other out by talking like the scary boy from the movie.  Hee. Hee. 

Three kids in the front seat. 

Buckled. 

Pedal to the metal. 

Quick & hard turn to the left. 

Fishtailing. 

Gas pedal sticks? 

Trying to brake? 

Perhaps just hitting the gas instead of the brakes! 

Air borne? 

Pond!

Tree!

Suddenly, our wild & bumpy ride ended.  In disbelief, we looked out the window to see that we had landed on the ninth green of the golf course. 

 

I was horrified.  While the three of us tried to stop shaking and collect our thoughts, a car pulled up.  Was it the police?  We decided that we would just say it was a deer.  Yes, a deer ran out into the road and we swerved to miss it.  Perfect plan! 

“Oh no, ” we all said, “It’s the stoners!”

They ran to the car with concern on their faces (because remember, this is a small town & The Beast is a one and only) and once they realized that we were fine, they threw their bodies to the ground in a fit of laughter and continued to roll on the green while we drove away. 

I got home a bit late that night.  Let me tell you something, you can’t pull the wool over my mother’s eyes.  She saw through my little deer in the road story.  Oh, yes… she was born at night, but not last night.