Marauders

A tale of Halloween hijinks

         Halloween is a fun time for children and parents alike. Carving pumpkins — fun for the kids; hiding in closets and jumping out with scary masks— fun for the parents! Well... fun for Dad, who chuckles all the way down the hall while Mom soothes the now-crying child.

         After the pumpkins come the yard art and porch displays: stuffed shirts like scarecrows and bony hands sticking out piles of leaves that have been raked and collected all autumn specifically for this purpose. Purple and green lights strung through the bushes. (Even the thorny rose bushes: Dad's punishment for mask-and-closet fiasco.)

         It's not time for the main event until the costumes are ready, though, and there's nothing better than home-made costumes...

         I was working at a warehouse that year as October ticked quickly away. I was barely able to keep our heads above water with the slim pay I was getting, and there was no extra money for frills. I had a generous pile of boxes, 6000 wire nuts, a rusty pipe fitting, and about $7.00. for costumes 2 boys, 8 and 7 years old. My idea to trip them into a mud puddle and then send them out trick-or-treating on their own as lost orphans was immediately rejected. Having taken my shot at the problem, I let my wife puzzle on it. I contented myself imagining which of the candy would look "suspicious" enough to be weeded out of their candy sack and into the "trash—" aka Dad's mouth!

         As I schemed the many ways to rob my offspring of their hard-earned loot, my wife called a close friend of ours, Angie. The had chatted for about fifteen minutes when my wife squealed with delight. "Yes! We'll be right over!" She hung up the phone, grabbed some random boxes and a handful of wire nuts, and herded me out the door along with the children.

         When we got to Angie's house, her husband wasn't there; he was working a late shift at the plant. Having no one to drink a beer with, I hovered around in the background, surreptitiously on the lookout for goodies—Angie always had some tasty leftovers in the fridge or cookies on the counter.

         As I drifted toward a plate of brownies I had spectated , my wife intercepted me. "I need you to cover these three boxes in black construction paper."

         "What? Come on, what for? What are we doing exactly?"

         "Remember the closet? Time for penance."

         "But I put lights in the—! Oh fine, I'll do it."

         I used Elmer's glue and packing tape to hide the red and white Granger boxes with black 9in x 12 in sheets of flimsy black construction paper. One box was about 30 inches tall, and a couple others were around 24 inches. Despite my requisite dad-grumbling, I was getting curious. "Are we finally shipping the children overseas?"

         The chorus of casually distressed children before my wife answered was music to my ears. "Appliances!" she said, smiling radiantly.

         I looked at her, raising one eyebrow.

         She smiled at my thickheadedness. "The costumes! A TV, a remote, and a VCR!" I had to admit, it was a pretty cool idea. I was getting ready to say so when she added, "And they're all going to be busted!" I closed my mouth; now it was a weird idea.

         "Huh?"

         She pulled a small spring out of a pile of such on the table, and she stretched it out of shape. She then taped one end to one of the boxes and screwed a wire nut to the other end. "See? Like something just 'sproinged' off." I did see, and it was a cool idea again.

         Soon, we were all having a good time coming up with ways to dress our children as torn up A/V equipment.

         In the end, they were adorable. Angie's daughter was a remote control. Most of her buttons were hanging off, a few were missing altogether, and her battery compartment on the back was empty. Or eldest son was a television. There was a crack in his gray construction paper screen, and his channel selector—an old stove dial—bobbed humorously on another spring; one of his rabbit-ear antennae was bent. Our youngest, the VCR, had a cassette sticking out of the front of his box and some actual tape from the cassette sticking out. His display read "err0R."

         The weather that Halloween night was perfect, and we had fun. Early on, I spied a Sugar Daddy candy slide into my eldest son's treat bag and decided that would look "suspicious" later. It was fun, but as always on Halloween, once the excitement of the new costumes wore thin, the lark of trick-or-treating became actual work for the children, and they started getting whiny.

         Toward the end of the night, we visited the house of an older couple. The woman opened the door, and all three of our third-rate appliances offered a slightly desultory "trick or treat."

         The lady smiled. "Well! What are we tonight?"

         Our eldest, the 8-year-old, rekindled some enthusiasm: "I'm a TV!"

         Angie's little girl, shyly: "I'm a 'amote control."

         And our youngest, exhausted and a bit grumpy, shrugged tiredly and replied with the innocent, honest irony only children can possess: "I'm bwoken."

         Never has a better response captured the essence of a moment.


         When we got home that night, our feet were tired, our sides were sore from laughing, and our kids were downright cranky. We half-babied and half-bullied them through brushing their teeth and going to bed.

         As my wife came back down the hallway from tucking the boys into bed again (which I had already done, but perhaps, in her mind, might have tucked them into sock drawers and toyboxes), she saw a stick of a Sugar Daddy sticking out of my mouth.

         "Those're the kids'!" she hissed, swatting my arm. "What's wrong with you?!"

         I took the candy-on-a-stick out of my mouth, shrugged, and told her simply: "I'm bwoken!"

Word Count 998