Damien Galeone

Halloween at Different Ages

Some of the benefits of stampeding towards your middle years are that you accrue pill bottles, a stash of good excuses and experience. It also allows you perspective on what people call the “circle of life.” With the advent of Facebook and the ability to see into each others’ worlds so easily, it has occurred to me just how differently all age groups celebrate Halloween and yet how similarly.

Baby’s First Halloween

OK, let’s be clear about something: If you are an infant, you are a human doll. Yes, you have a heart beat and yes, you did come flying out of someone’s nether regions and yes, your wailing and screeching does force your feeders to drink and hide their weapons.

But you are a doll. And this is never more obvious than at Halloween when parents decide to produce future blackmail material in their pre-hallowed choices. I have seen baby dragons, baby Frodos, baby doctors, baby Voldemorts and baby ninjas.

Don’t get the idea that I dislike this. On the contrary, I fully advocate it for two reasons. First, it happened to us and now it happens to you. Second, you’ll need to have some proof at your trial, right?

Also, it’s kind of fun to watch Voldemort drool on himself and poop his pants.

Kids

Halloween as a kid can be summed up in this conversation:

Kid A: “So, let me get this straight – I get to dress up as my favorite superhero?”

Parent B: “Yeah…”

Kid A: “And then, I get to take one of your pillow cases and then demand that strangers fill it with candy?”

Parent B: “Yeah, that’s pretty much it.” (Insert sigh, suggesting resignation)

Kid A: “…”

Parent B: “Are you crying?”

So few concepts in our lives will be as perfect, sugar-filled, and immediately gratifying as this one is. The only downside is that it sets us up for a hell of a fall later in life.

Teenager

When you’re a teenager, Trick or Treating is sort of like masturbation. This isn’t necessarily a mind-blowing simile since everything is like masturbation when you’re a teen: pizza is like masturbation, math exams are like masturbation, cleaning your shoes is like masturbation.

Trick or Treating is like masturbation since it’s one thing that every teen wants to do, many teens do do, yet no teen wants to be seen doing. And what better way to get away with this activity than by donning a mask on the one night it’s socially acceptable?

So, while some teenagers (who say that Trick or Treating is, like, totally lame) may throw parties, others will don their Gandalf outfits and prance around the streets demanding candy like the momentarily uncloseted TorT lovers they are.

College

You’re in college now which means three things: masturbation is cool again, Halloween is cool again and you have discovered alcohol.

College Halloween usually means that you are in a basement party drinking some sort of blue punch spiked with 100% alcohol additives. Men dress up to revolt against the nerd longing they have been suffering since high school (Speed Racer, Captain America) or to show that even though they think this, like, lame holiday sucks they’ll go along with it to get the blue punch (pajamas, robe, a college student!).

It doesn’t matter what women dress up as, the word Slutty will go in front of it. I have seen slutty dragons, slutty Frodos, slutty doctors, slutty Voldemorts and slutty ninjas.

If you don’t drink too much of the blue punch, just before you fall into bed you’ll get the sense that the world, with all its quirks and eventualities, is moving full circle.

Adult

Adult Halloween is marked by one fact: You don’t give a f*@k.

All day every day, you are at a place where people rule your world; what you can wear, how you can speak. Halloween becomes the one night when you can act like a total ass-monkey and get away with it.

We celebrate this freedom by dressing in whatever we want, drinking and grumbling about our bosses. We drop candy in our scotch and hand out other candy to TorTers. If we are at a party, we ogle the women who still have the legs to dress up as Slutty anythings or show off bosoms. Or both.

This night is a success if you wake up the following morning with a hangover that tastes like candy corn and fake blood. If you have kids, you dress them as whatever you want to see Winston Churchill dressed up as.

Approaching full circle.

Old Age

Well, like almost anything else concerning old age, this one depends on your owners…I mean, children. Halloween could find you drooling into a pumpkin head full of candy on your lap, drooling and sitting on your porch shouting at passing TorTers, or it could find you dressed as Voldemort pooping in your pants and drooling on yourself.

Full circle.