“It’s For The Children” : A Halloween Lie By Sean Carless

So, it’s officially spooky season. I don’t make the rules. This is just the way it goes, okay? We’ve got to go along with it, lest we incur the wrath of fully grown adult women who like to pretend they’re real-life witches just because they have a few crystals in their apartment.

But yes, it is officially Halloween season. A season that I love. But mostly for completely gluttonous reasons. Those reasons? My yearly tradition of procuring a giant box of assorted, fun-sized chocolate bars!

Sometimes two.

Sometimes more than two.

We don’t keep records here.

I like an assortment. It’s important to have variety when you’re making the same terrible decision possibly 215 consecutive times.

It always starts awkwardly, however. Me, arriving at the supermarket with the nervous gait of a dude about to set a time bomb, rob a bank with a handwritten note, or sit down on a bench and pretend to read a newspaper while somebody discreetly slides a clandestine briefcase underneath it and walks away.

Why do I make this so hard on myself? Why can’t I just revel in my unbridled greed and gluttony?

I will tell you why. Because this purchase always comes with what feels like an interrogation. I feel like Dustin Hoffman in Dick Tracy, melting under those white-hot lights as the yellow-clad detective attempts to make me finally admit that I work for Big Boy. And then come those inevitable comments from the cashier. Because apparently a grown man can’t quietly buy enough chocolate to fill a nuclear bomb shelter without someone assuming he’s doing something completely normal and expected.

“Oh, your kids are going to be so excited!” she’ll say with an innocent smile as I shakily place three consecutive boxes containing more than 600 chocolate bars on the weathered conveyor belt and watch them get zipped ahead. “That’s a lot! You must have a huge neighbourhood!”

And now I have to stand there like a fucking bald-faced liar, hiding my shame behind a facial expression that I hope conveys “generous and well-respected member of the community” and not “will open this in the parking lot and possibly wipe the excess chocolate film on my dark pants, in the absence of a napkin, to camouflage the evidence of my laziness/unpreparedness.”

I have to think quickly on my feet.

“Yes. My children, who actually exist, will love this.”

Perfect. Very natural. Exactly how a father talks about his children. Nothing establishes credibility like volunteering that the people you’re referring to are real.

“And of course, my neighbourhood is huge. I can’t wait to give these chocolate bars out to the various children who will come to my door. And they will be the ones who eat them. Definitely them. And not one singular adult man.”

At this point, I’ve provided considerably more information than the transaction requires. She’s scanning a box of mixed bars, and I’m establishing an alibi and a possible escape route, searching for the most physically vulnerable elderly shopper in Walmart to barrel over if the situation warrants an emergency exodus.

What is wrong with me? You know, besides the possible sociopathy and complete lack of functional human emotions. The cashier didn’t even accuse me of anything. She made a friendly observation, and somehow I’ve responded with a sworn affidavit about the intended distribution of an impossible amount of miniature chocolates.

But what am I supposed to say?

“Actually, these are all for me. Every last one. I’m going to take them home and eat them in revolting quantities that make the term ‘fun size’ legally meaningless.”

You can’t say that. You have to maintain the fiction. Nod politely. Pay. Leave before she asks how old the children are and I accidentally slip up and say, “Snickers and Twix.”

Besides, again, the box says “fun size.” That’s their terminology. I’m simply trying to have the designated amount of fun advertised on the packaging. If one is fun, presumably thirty-five in a row is a fucking festival, complete with strippers and maybe even a hand job.

And come Halloween night, I will be celebrating that festival privately. Repeatedly. Lights off. Door locked. Me crouched behind it, clutching the box to my chest like Gollum with the One Ring, or like someone outside has arrived with grave intentions to seize my assets or collect the human monies that I stupidly borrowed from the mafia to fund my irrational Funko Pop collection.

“Trick or treat!”

Silence.

I expect no tricks. This generation does not even remember a time when that was allowed and/or possible. There will be no toilet paper in my tree. Or a flaming bag of dog shit on my doorstep. Just the kind of quiet disappointment a child carrying an empty pillowcase feels when they suspect someone is home but is simply ignoring their very existence.

The silence continues.

Well, silence apart from the deafening crackle of a miniature chocolate wrapper, which suddenly sounds like I’m opening a fucking tarpaulin in a cathedral or making my way through an escape room filled entirely with bubble wrap.

I freeze. The children freeze. Somewhere on the other side of the door, a tiny skeleton or witch begins to suspect there’s been a breakdown in the social contract.

“I think someone’s home.”

Wrong. Nobody’s home, buddy. Especially not the respected local philanthropist the cashier met earlier. That man has disappeared under mysterious circumstances and is now possibly buried deep in a block of cement beneath some football field somewhere, like Jimmy Hoffa. All that remains here is a grown-ass man hiding on the floor with caramel in his teeth.

I feel a little bad, obviously. They’ve dressed up. They’ve walked all this way. They’ve brought their little jack-o’-lantern buckets and their optimism.

But I also brought something: my debit card. And I remember quite clearly who used it.

They’ll be fine. It’s a huge neighbourhood, after all. I’ve already confirmed that with the cashier. Plenty of other doors. Plenty of people whose commitment to sharing extends beyond a fictional conversation.

Meanwhile, I’ll be inside, sneakily working my way through my home and away from the door entirely, leopard-crawling like some sort of hardened commando who has slowly emerged from a Vietnamese swamp with a Bowie knife clenched in his teeth. Only this time, it will be a Coffee Crisp. An endeavour clearly superior to sadly bringing the blood-stained dog tags of my best friend home to his grieving wife. I’ve been spared that burden. It’s been washed away by the delicious flavour of this chocolate coffee crunch as I pour every single M&M from a miniature package into my mouth simultaneously. Dear Lord.

So, until next year, suckers. Because I am off to enjoy thirty-five consecutive Snickers bars. Dick vein and all.

I’m Sean.