{"id":5943,"date":"2023-10-30T21:02:22","date_gmt":"2023-10-30T20:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=5943"},"modified":"2023-10-30T21:02:22","modified_gmt":"2023-10-30T20:02:22","slug":"not-so-mischief-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=5943","title":{"rendered":"Not So Mischief Night"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I was never allowed to do anything bad on Mischief Night. My mother once told me she had a crystal ball and I believed her all the way up til my junior year in college, assuming that if she hadn\u2019t beaten me to death by then, then she couldn\u2019t see anything I was doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mischief Night was relatively tame where I lived. We had some ruffians nearby, but they didn\u2019t do anything but throw an egg or two at your house and then run screeching into the night and forest. Some kids from my high school once tried to egg the house of Randall Cunningham. I wasn\u2019t there, but in hindsight nobody seemed to express much shock at getting caught, what with the caravan of Volvos Nissans lined up outside the estate of the state\u2019s most famous professional athlete. I wonder if Randall still thinks about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My one and only Mischief Night confirmed my lifelong status as a rule follower. I went out with three guys from my street. We were ill equipped, I believe only bringing along a roll of toilet paper to cover someone\u2019s house in and I don\u2019t think there were eggs. We dressed in dark clothes, which for me meant my grade school uniform. It was dark green, but this is what I had to work with. I did so under the assumption that we\u2019d be in the woods. Dark Green + Dark Woods = Where\u2019d that guy go?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost instantly I was seen from a back window. A woman doing dishes peered out into the woods and noticed four stalking idiots. An evidently highly-trained operative, she snapped off her lights and was quickly on her porch. Seconds later she was yelling at us to disappear. Most of us did. Most. I became petrified and stayed in position. This position was lying on my stomach in front of a tree. The flood lights of the backyard were on and I could feel them pouring into my head. Every time they\u2019d snap off, the woman would wave a hand and snap them back on. Eddie squatted behind a tree a few yards away, impoloring me to get up and make a run for it. I thought I was hidden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cListen to your friend. Get out of here,\u201d the woman shouted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDame. Come on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I tried to get up, but alas my shoelace was attached to a stick that wasn\u2019t budging. Eddie wandered out of his hiding spot to help and, when that gesture proved useless, the woman herself came out and undud my shoelace. She pulled me to my feet and padded me on the butt (different times, I called no authorities).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus was the beginning and the ending of a great criminal mind. Since then I\u2019ve left all sorts of mischief to those who aren\u2019t me. I stay home, watch a movie, and listen for ruffians and shenanigans. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was never allowed to do anything bad on Mischief Night. My mother once told me she had a crystal ball and I believed her all the way up til my junior year in college, assuming that if she hadn\u2019t beaten me to death by then, then she couldn\u2019t see anything I was doing. Mischief […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/960px-Dellroy_Halloween_tp.jpg?fit=960%2C720&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-1xR","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5943"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5946,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5943\/revisions\/5946"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}