Today was probably one of my final trick-or-treating missions. And if this really was my last year going door to door collecting candy, I have to say, it was a pretty chaotic way to end my career. But before Halloween even started, I had to survive something much worse: waking up at 6:15 in the morning. On a weekend. Yes, a weekend. My swimming team was hosting an event called Spooky Sprints, which basically meant showing up ridiculously early to swim. I’m sorry, but who decided that waking up before seven on a weekend was a good idea? Weekends are supposed to be for sleeping, not dragging yourself out of bed when your brain hasn’t even started working yet.
Naturally, I tried multiple times to get out of going. Unfortunately, none of my attempts worked. So I went. And guess what? I didn’t even swim! The two events I actually wanted to participate in never happened because they ran out of time. So congratulations to me. I woke up ridiculously early on a weekend to accomplish absolutely nothing. What an amazing start to Halloween. But honestly, my mind was already somewhere else. Halloween was the main event, and I had a mission to complete.
I genuinely think this might be my last year trick-or-treating. Not because I suddenly hate candy. Absolutely not. It’s just that I’m getting older, and realistically, how many more years can I keep showing up at people’s doors asking for free sugar? The bigger problem, though, is adults. For some reason, adults seem to believe Halloween should start around six or seven and end at eight. Eight! That’s barely enough time to accomplish anything. And why does six o’clock feel so much earlier than seven? It’s literally only one hour, but somehow adults treat those sixty minutes like an entirely different universe. Personally, I think Halloween should start around 5:20 and continue until we’ve completed the mission. Unfortunately, adults don’t seem to share my vision.
Our first trick-or-treating trip started around 5:20, before our second friend arrived. We immediately began exploring the neighborhood, looking for houses with candy. The problem was that hardly anyone was outside yet, and some houses weren’t even ready. We were basically trying to start Halloween before Halloween had officially opened for business. After that first trip, I realized something unexpected: trick-or-treating is actually exhausting. Seriously. You have to walk everywhere, carry your candy, run between houses, and somehow maintain enough energy to keep going. At one point, I was ready to go back, sit down, and watch a movie like a civilized human being. But no. Apparently, we had to go out for round two.
By the time we started our second trip, it was around 7:40. The daylight was gone, which meant Halloween finally looked like Halloween. Unfortunately, according to adult logic, this was also approximately the time when Halloween was supposed to be ending. So basically, the best part of Halloween lasts about thirty or forty minutes. Wonderful system. Anyway, we went back into action. There were houses with enormous bowls of candy sitting outside, accompanied by little signs saying, “Please take one.” Now, under normal circumstances, I understand what “take one” means. It’s a pretty straightforward instruction. But this was possibly my final year, and if you’re going to retire from trick-or-treating, you might as well go out with a bang. Let’s just say some candy bowls experienced a sudden and dramatic reduction in inventory. A few of them may have ended up completely empty. Was it the most responsible thing in the world? Probably not. But at that moment, we were operating under a very different set of priorities.
At one point, I tripped over a Halloween decoration. Normally, that would have ended with me falling flat on my face. Instead, I somehow performed what looked like a completely accidental backflip recovery. I have no idea how I managed it, but for one glorious second, I felt like an action-movie character. Then things got even stranger. I spotted four teenagers, probably around seventeen years old, dressed like robbers. They had ski masks and were carrying an absolutely ridiculous amount of candy. I’m talking four enormous Costco-sized bags. These guys had enough candy to open their own convenience store, and they were loading everything into a car. Naturally, I was curious. I figured that if they had found a house giving away that much candy, I needed to investigate immediately.
So I started running toward the house they had just visited. Too late. They had already taken practically everything. I’m pretty sure they even grabbed the entire table. The actual table! At that point, I wasn’t even sure whether I was watching trick-or-treating or witnessing an actual robbery disguised as Halloween. Honestly, those guys could probably make a few bucks selling the table alone. Then I encountered another group of suspicious-looking characters. One was dressed as Darth Vader. Another was a guy who looked about twenty-five, dressed as Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings. And I’m not kidding, his voice sounded almost exactly like Gandalf’s. So there I was, standing in the middle of Halloween, watching Gandalf and Darth Vader apparently discussing a duel. Think about that for a second. A powerful wizard from Middle-earth and a Sith Lord from a galaxy far, far away were having a conversation about fighting each other. At this point, Halloween had completely abandoned reality.
Eventually, we moved on to the movie-watching part of the evening. I was actually looking forward to this because, after running around the neighborhood collecting candy, sitting down and watching a movie sounded fantastic. Unfortunately, that experience lasted approximately four minutes before things started falling apart. Here’s something I don’t understand: why do some people scream so much during scary movies? I mean, I get it. It’s supposed to be scary. That’s literally the point. But can we please just sit down, watch the movie, and enjoy being terrified without turning the entire room into a screaming competition?
I also think some parents are way too protective about what movies their kids can watch. If you never let your kids experience anything even slightly scary, how are they supposed to build up their tolerance? Eventually, they’re going to get older and watch those movies anyway. Nobody wants to be the teenager who shows up at a friend’s house and announces, “Sorry, guys, I can’t watch anything above PG.” At least my friend’s mom was pretty reasonable. She said PG-13 movies were fine, which, in my opinion, is exactly where we needed to be. Although, to be fair, I don’t completely understand the movie rating system. There’s PG, PG-13, R, and a bunch of other stuff. Sometimes I feel like somebody just invented random letters and numbers and expected everyone to understand them. My mom doesn’t seem particularly impressed by the system either. Her logic is basically that I’m probably going to watch these movies eventually, so why make such a huge deal about it now? I can’t say I disagree.
And as if the swimming meet, candy collecting, accidental gymnastics, teenage robbers, Darth Vader, Gandalf, and movie drama weren’t enough, there was also a Silicon Valley AI Film Festival happening that day. Yes, an AI film festival. Because apparently Halloween wasn’t busy enough already. Looking back, the whole day was completely ridiculous. I woke up before seven for a swimming event where I didn’t swim, went on two candy missions, nearly fell over a decoration, witnessed what might have been the strangest candy operation in neighborhood history, encountered characters from two completely different movie universes, and somehow ended up debating the philosophy of horror movies.
Not exactly a normal Saturday. But if this really was my last year trick-or-treating, at least I didn’t go out quietly. I went out with candy, chaos, and possibly a stolen table. And honestly, that’s a pretty good way to retire.
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