Halloween is one of the few holidays that has the decency to change its expectations of you as you age. Christmas keeps demanding that you experience wonder. Thanksgiving expects gratitude. New Year’s Eve insists you have fun, which is the surest way to prevent anyone from having any.
Halloween, on the other hand, understands that a 7-year-old, a 17-year-old, a 27-year-old and a 57-year-old have very different ideas about what constitutes a successful evening. It accommodates all of them, although not necessarily with the approval of law enforcement.
Stage One: The Golden Age of Free Candy
For children, Halloween is the greatest possible arrangement of human affairs. You put on a costume, walk up to the homes of strangers, and they give you candy. Not because you’ve been good, or done your chores, or successfully endured a haircut. Just because you showed up dressed as Spider-Man. It’s a beautiful system.
The costume is important, but only as a means to an end. The real business is acquisition. Routes are planned. Neighborhoods are evaluated. The house distributing full-size Snickers is identified and its location treated as classified intelligence.
At the end of the evening, the haul is dumped on the living room floor and sorted with the ruthless efficiency of a commodities trader. Candy corn is regarded with suspicion. Almond Joys are treated as a personal insult. Parents impose a candy tax, introducing their children to the fundamental injustice of government.
Stage Two: The Criminal Years
At some point, usually around 13, you become too old to trick-or-treat but too young to have anything resembling good judgment.
Halloween becomes an opportunity to roam around after dark in groups, doing things you would be embarrassed to explain to your parents, assuming you were foolish enough to get caught.
There are eggs. There is toilet paper. There are elaborate plans involving shaving cream that sound brilliant at 8:30 p.m. and considerably less so when a police cruiser appears.
The costume becomes optional (for the kids, not the police. The police keep their costumes on). The important thing is being outside, unsupervised, with people whose collective intelligence drops a *lot* in groups. (Here again I am speaking of the kids. Mostly.)
Stage Three: The Sexy Years
Eventually, Halloween becomes an adult holiday, which means alcohol, questionable sexual decisions, and the opportunity to dress in ways that would ordinarily invite a conversation with Human Resources.
This is the era of elaborate parties, expensive costumes, and the joyous tradition of making everything slutty. Slutty doctor. Slutty vampire. Slutty Cookie Monster. I invite you to imagine a Slutty Donald Trump costume (send this week’s therapy bill to Growing Community Media).