Princess Alice and the Beets

Butterfingers.  

There Smarty Pants.  Admit it.  The very word is tantalizing.  See if you can resist the real thing.  

I know, I know.  You’re not supposed to buy your favorite candy for the Trick or Treaters.  You’re supposed to buy something you yourself, the self-possessed adult, won’t eat.  Like liver.  Or beets.   

Because honestly, I’d have eaten candy corn if I’d bought it instead, even though it has plummeted from one of the happiest Halloween acquisitions of my early youth – so fun for precision consumption, from white cap to orange body to yellow tip – all the way to the pit of disdain, in the misguided “strategic” thinking of one trying to delay the inevitable.  

These are the consequences of severe, self-imposed restrictions:  One will binge when in the possession of Halloween gold.  So I bought the Butterfingers.  As a mature adult, I refuse to over-eat bad candy. 

Halloween’s a once-a-year holiday after all and the Trick or Treaters will never miss the fun-sized bites I snarfed down in batches of three or five over the very few days between my ill-fated trip to Raley’s and All Hallows Eve! 

And what’s the fun in giving out candy that even I don’t like?  Kids assess things pretty quickly and when they’re disappointed, they can be vengeful.  Especially the little ones.  One pouty faced Tinker Bell can ruin your whole happy time. 

I don’t want to be known as the neighborhood health nut either, though currently that scenario seems remote. 

This whole Halloween thing puts me in mind of a troubling tendency among adults for trying to explain themselves by conducting investigative studies with children as the subjects.  Consider the “Marshmallow Experiment”:  A test supposedly created to measure youngsters’ ability to delay their gratification.   

Making the research rounds for over 40 years, I call it a classic method for shaking off the doldrums when life slows down in the torture chamber.  Hey watch this!  Will this hungry little kid eat one Sta-Puft now or hold out for two later?  

Another experiment shown on CBS Sunday Morning recently demonstrates how a child’s inclination to cheat can be ameliorated by an invisible being.  Oh yeah.  That’s some sick scientific shenanigans. 

First a group of six-year-olds are shown a Velcro dartboard and given little Velcro balls to toss at it.  The rules of the game are that they must stay behind a line on the floor, turn their backs and throw the balls onto the target over their shoulders.  An almost impossible task designed by fiendish “scientists” to thwart and torment the innocent.  

The “researchers” then observe through a one-way mirror as one-by-one the kids become frustrated and cheat.  Almost to a sweet tiny person, they face the target, step across the line, and in some cases walk right up to the dartboard to plant those sticky orbs, creating a perfect bull’s-eye. 

Then, and here’s where it gets really interesting, the lab geeks change the scenario.  They place a chair in the room and tell their next group of torment-ees that Princess Alice is seated there.  She’s invisible, you understand.  You can’t see her.  But she’s going to watch the game.   

Now the kids are skeptical, bless their cheating little hearts.  They immediately approach the chair, inspect the air around it, run their hands over it and tell their captors that as citizens of a democracy they owe no allegiance to royalty.  Yes I know, says He in Control.  But she’s there. 

Then, the kids each have their turn alone in the room with the dartboard, the balls and the chair.  And guess what?  They don’t cheat anymore.  

Weird, huh?  But cool in a way.  

I like it except as it applies to me and my pagan holiday.  Why do I feel guilty about my Butterfinger transgression?  It’s Princess Alice! 

She sees me when I’m sleeping.  She knows when I’m awake.  She knows if I’ve bought Butterfingers or beets, so get beets for heaven’s sake. 

There it is.  A grown person can’t even enjoy her own personal bull’s-eye of an evening without Princess Alice shaking her head and saying “tsk, tsk.” 

Fine.  My husband will spirit the remainder of the chocolate-coated flaky peanut butter morsels away to his office.  We’ll see if the Princess has gone corporate.

Halloween with the King

My husband quit wearing his pig mask.  For years he kept a full rubber headed, blunt-nosed, cigar-smoking pig mask near the door on Halloween.  When the tiny Tinker Bells and Bat Men approached in innocent anticipation and rang our bell, he’d rush into position; sweep the snouted face over his head, swing the door open, and growl.  What pig growls? 

The tiny trick-or-treaters, stunned mid-sentence, could only step back and stare.  Their parents would press forward just in case the need arose to swing into protective action.  But it was all in good fun, ha ha!  We kept lots of Snickers and Milky Ways in a large jack-o-lantern bowl, and never rationed the kids.  It’s the least we could do to compensate for the confusion.

Now, that mask, wadded up and stuck to its latex self, jams a corner in a box in the attic along with residual spider webs, my witch’s pointy hat, and a life-sized, glow-in-the-dark plastic skeleton.  It’s just as well. 

Our claim to Halloween glory, my husband’s and mine, was the year we won the costume competition dressed as “Pat.”  You remember Pat, don’t you?  The androgynous character from Saturday Night Live who creeped everyone out because you could never be sure:  Was Pat female or male? 

Pat had short-ish curly black hair; so we bought wigs.  Pat was heavy; so we padded ourselves – this was back in the lean days, you understand.  Pat had breasts, though it was never clear if these were man breasts or woman breasts; we incorporated accoutrements for the illusion. Black horn-rimmed glasses, matching blue plaid snap-button western shirts, Wranglers, and boots completed the ensemble.  

But the crowning touch was Pat’s wheezing, whining voice.  My husband perfected it.  He spoke for us both all night long.  The voice, and the self-caressing gestures that made the judges cringe, blink, and pull away as though they’d just inhaled a big whiff of yellow onion, secured the trophy. 

Aahh.  Those were the days. 

In my heyday, I dressed as Andy Rooney, the Living Dead, even punk rocker Sid Vicious – or at least someone he would have hung out with.  One of my students spiked my hair in what he called a “Statue of Liberty,” and lent me his heavy black leather jacket.  Ripped black nylon hose, chains hanging and safety pins everywhere; black lipstick and black fingernails.  Man that was fun. 

One year I wore a Superman costume complete with boots and cape.  I flew all over campus that year.  The kids loved it.  Not sure what my boss thought when I attended a meeting at the District Office in full Man of Steel regalia.  I felt powerful.   

I kept the full-body panther suit handy and wore it for many years, whenever the mood struck me, not just Halloween.  Where is it now?  No matter.  The moths have had their way with it. 

It’s not important.  The past few years, the number trick-or-treaters in our neighborhood have dwindled to single digits.  We still stock up on just-in-case candy, but wind up sending it to my husband’s office the next day.  The kids don’t visit houses anymore.  They wear store-bought costumes prescribed by Hollywood merchandisers and patrol stores downtown or at the mall, moving from merchant to merchant with their parents, working a pattern for maximum take, minimum interaction. 

Gotta be this way.  I understand.  Still… 

Gone is the excitement for a teenager, face painted, costume pulled together out of mom and dad’s closet, carrying his pillowcase, and running through the darkness with his friends, thrilled with the imaginary world that’s only open once a year.  This year, teens will dress like Snookie.  They’ll buy false six-pack abs and make like “The Situation.” 

Sigh.  

The next step in homogenizing Halloween?  Government takeover!  Connecticut lawmakers have a bill pending that will move the event in that state to the last Saturday of the month instead of the 31^st.  OK.  Why not?  Civilize it.  School nights.  I get it. 

But I’m not done.  I don’t have to give it up.  I’m not a kid.  And I still have an Elvis in me.  I’ve got a hankering to dress up like Elvis.  I know.  I should settle for Priscilla Beaulieu, but she’s just too easy.  Anyone can tease her hair into a rage and line her eyes with a magic marker.  

But Elvis.  Elvis!  Now that’s Halloween!