Joan Ball is a business professor at St. John’s University in New York and the author of Flirting with Faith: My Spiritual Journey from Atheism to a Faith-Filled Life.
O, gentle readers… the shame!
I, who think on Halloween so fondly, savoring everything from its sugary overload to its creepy crawly costumyness, have today crossed a line into fuddy-duddery that I never dreamed would come to pass.
That’s right. When our doorbell rang, I hid from the trick or treaters.
Granted, they arrived at just after 1pm this afternoon. (Who does that???) My husband and I were in full-bore Saturday cleaning frenzy, covered in dust, concerned only with closet clearing, debris removal, junk-rearranging, and general tidying. My hair was a veritable Medusa’s snake nest (and, now that I think of it, could probably passed for a costume) and I had on sweats so sloppy they deserved to be burned, rather than washed. Neither of us had eaten, decorated the apartment suitably for Halloween, or yet set out the candy we’d bought for the kids into a dish.
At the chiming of the door, my husband and I looked wildly at one another, froze in place, and our eyes widened in panic. “Shhhhh!” he gestured frantically. I instinctively ducked (like they could see me). And he whispered, “Let’s pretend we’re not here!”
I found myself nodding conspiratorially. And in that moment, my coolness evaporated forever.
Oh, how I hated adults like that when I was growing up and making my candy-grubbing rounds with my greedy little friends. We knew you were in there. We could hear you prowling around, making dinner, watching TV, hiding behind the potted plants. Oh, how we fumed (especially if you had signed up in the lobby to be trick or treated).
You were, in a word (or two), no fun.
And now that curmudgeon is me.
I’ve managed to rally: my hubby and I went out and bought fake cobwebs; lined our hallway with gargoyles and creepy masks, coffins and guillotines… but still… we lost our youth there for a moment or two. And that just isn’t who I ever imagined I’d be.