We have a situation.I can only compare it to the similarly trauma-induced Toilet Paper Closet that my mother maintained faithfully until her demise.
Mom sailed patriotically through butter rationing and she was fine with painting the seams on her legs in lieu of stockings but she never got over the toilet paper shortage in World War II, and as long as I can remember her linen closet was stacked to the ceiling with toilet paper.
We, on the other hand, are living with a pile of Halloween candy that could block out the sun. The new topography of our kitchen counter shows up on LIDAR. The center of the pile has probably achieved composting temperatures by now.
It all goes back to a Halloween forty years ago when we bought what we thought was a reasonable, even plentiful, amount of candy and discovered, an hour in, that we had way undershot. Worse, most of the kids on our porch were dressed up as eighteen-year-olds with scowls and pillowcases. Some of them held out second pillowcases and demanded "one more for the baby at home." This wasn't fun. We phoned our neighbors to see if they had any extra candy and they were panicking also. Someone made a trip to the store to find shelves bare of everything but Tic-Tacs and tiny eyeglass screwdrivers. It didn't occur to any of us that we could turn the lights out and hide under the bed.
So ever since, we've gone way overboard, even though nothing like that ever happened again. Dave wanted to buy candy early, but I know that trick, and I held him off until about two weeks ago. Then we got a few dozen full-size bars. Dave likes to give the immediate neighbor children full size bars, and then it doesn't seem fair so he gets a bunch more full-size bars, and really we don't have that many trick-or-treaters anymore so they might as well ALL get full-size bars. And then we got a couple bags of fun-size bars just to be on the safe side. And we waited.
Then I noticed that the bagged bars were not fun-size after all, but even smaller and presumably even more fun. They were basically only a square inch of candy bar each. Which meant that it wouldn't be that big a deal to go ahead and open it up and pop a few in our mouths. A few here, a few there. How much trouble could I get into, especially during World Series season when I'm already eating salted peanuts in the shell for dinner and praying for a sweep so my colon can recover? The day before Halloween, after we'd gone ahead and opened up the second bag, I was at the store and decided to restock the stash just in case we ran low. The lady right around the corner said she'd gotten five times as many kids as we did last year, and on the Alameda Ridge a few blocks away word was they got 300-400. I got another couple bags of actual fun-size bars, and then another couple just in case.
Not sure what happened after that. We stuffed all we could into the cabinet and some of it whelped. There was a Baby Ruth and a Snickers left out on the counter and Jesus showed up in the middle of the night and loaved and fished them. Then we had three bowls the size of God's satellite dish filled with fun-sized bars with itty bitty bars to spackle up the spaces plus a solid forty full size candy bars not including the twelve we thought were full size but turned out to be packages of eight fun-size. Each.The six small children who showed up did real well.
Six. Real well.
The good news is I'm finally out of salted peanuts in the shell. Should have bought some more toilet paper, though.
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Composting? Jeez, those wrappers are gonna last way longer than any deity's pay-per-view contract :o(
ReplyDeleteOh yes, and don't forget all the child slave labor that went into the chocolate.
DeleteYour mom seems like she was a very wise woman. I bet if you had looked under her bed you would find a few more rolls.
ReplyDeleteI wish I had hoarded TP years ago and had closets full of it. Having to choose between TP$ or doing something fun .... is not fun. LOL
I suppose we could learn to skimp, but that's a challenge too, innit?
DeleteIt's probably time for children hitting up neighbors for treats to stop. (Though it does train them for a promising career in politics.) I enjoyed it when I was a child, but that was certainly a different time. And I always enjoyed the dressing up aspect of it way more than any candy. I think that most kids today have Halloween parties at their schools, and there are certainly "Halloween parades" at various venues. It would give kids their costume and candy fix and be much safer as well.
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty clear to me that on our block, at least, the kids are doing something more structured than going door to door. Oh! I just remembered bobbing for apples at a school Halloween party. That was the year I gave my heart to caramel, too.
DeleteIt has been decades since I saw a costumed blackmailers. We no longer have to buy crappy candy and just buy French Truffles and other chocolates and munch away in the evenings.
ReplyDeleteI think what happens here is the kids who do trick-or-treat try to maximize their haul and look down our block, see only two porch lights on, and go to the next block.
DeleteMy stepmother must have remembered the same shortage as your mother. While visiting my parents house back in the early 80s I went into the attic to get something down for the parents and was shocked at the amount of stashed toilet paper stored there! I questioned my father and he referred me to my mother which would have been an act of futility.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, if you need a way to get rid of your excess candy I will happily give you my shipping address.
I believe Dave is taking care of it, but I like your idea better.
DeleteWe had 14 kids come by. Cold, rainy night. Lots of leftover candy from a variety pack. I'd never heard of Starburst so I tried one, and I don't think it's candy. I don't know what it actually is, and I apologize to the kids that got it. They did also get Snickers and M&Ms so all was not lost.
ReplyDeleteTotally different topic:
We decided that recycled TP was a good idea, so my first order was for the 48 pack. Packaged in paper, sent in a cardboard box, no plastic involved. Holy cow! Was that a lot of TP. (Who Gives a Crap is the company, for anyone interested, and yes, I guess this is sort of an advert.)
I'm going to try that outfit as soon as we run out of Costco TP. We gave up our Costco membership because although many things were ridiculously cheap, they were also mummified in plastic.
DeleteOur house was TPed once. My mother went out and collected the toilet paper from the tree limbs and we used it in the manner for which it was intended. I'm thinking she was the front-runner in recycled TP.
DeleteThank you, thank you for that story.
DeleteIf you use a bidet, you can just use a clean washcloth to wipe with. No toilet paper needed.
ReplyDeleteGot one. It's sort of a pain to use if you have pants on, though.
DeleteYou do know you're supposed to take your pants down first, right?
DeleteWe use old white t-shirts torn into rags to dry with.
DeleteYabbut...you have to take your pants OFF to get your feetsies around the bidet. If you're facing the faucets. Which is the normal way. I guess you could face out...never occurred to me. D'oh!
DeleteBut won't that send the germs the wrong way? You know the old axiom for women about wiping from front to back.
DeleteSorry to be graphic, but this is important for us females. There is such a thing as a front-mounted faucet. That's the only kind I would use, TBH.
But just look at what fun Pootie is having! (I assume that photo is a stand in for how YOU look diving into the candy!)
ReplyDeleteWe used to get over 100 kids for Halloween when our kids were young. For the last ten years we've gotten a third that many, but my husband still stocks up "just in case", smiling to himself at the thought of all those goodies he's going to get.
All of Dave-and-Pootie's favorite holidays feature lots of candy. Why, you'd think he believed in the resurrection of the Lord.
DeleteHusband only bought candy he likes - all Reeses cups. We had two kids come before we headed out to dinner. (It's a Halloween tradition for us to leave around 6:30 and go out to eat with our equally Scrooge-y friends). However, even though I turned off the lights, just in case (sort of like paying protection to the mob) we left out a plastic table with a bowl full of Reeses and a note. "Take one! Please be nice and leave some for the next kids!" Amazingly there were 3 piecs left when we came home around 9. But it was definitely a slow night here. Other streets had way more kids this year. Each year we have gotten fewer.
ReplyDeleteI distinctly remember seeing our neighbor put out a bowl of candy in just that manner and the first kid up dumped the whole bowl in his bag.
DeleteTrick or Treat appeared to be a dying tradition in my new neighborhood. Went from about ten the first year to one family that came through very late last year. I was prepared for more disappointment this year, but did stock up. Had about twenty kids come through. They were in small groups at first and I was giving away handfuls of chocolate because I didn't want any left over for the Fat Guy to get fatter on. Then they came in droves and I went down to two bars per child. And then there were none and I had two bags left over. Ugh.
ReplyDeleteOnly two bags.
DeleteYour mum and me might have been sisters from a long gone stone-age ancestor. I also used to stock up on toilet paper and I've never lived through a war or depression. I just hate the thought of running out and what if any or all of K's hundreds of relatives dropped in? Anyway, it got to the point where the kids would bring their friends home from school just to show off the wall of toilet paper. now I have a teeny tiny one bedroom flat with no storage, not even a linen closet, so I have to cut way back on the toilet paper, only buying one 24 pack at a time. I also stock up on Halloween candies. We don't do trick or treating out here, but that doesn't mean I can't treat myself, after all, I do it the rest of the year, so why should Halloween be any different?
ReplyDeleteI do like the idea of the kids trooping in to ooh and aah at your TP wall.
DeleteWe're new in town so I asked on the local FB Buy 'n Sell how many kids to expect and some with said they had 200-300. I stocked up on chocolate bars I can't eat because I'm deathly allergic to chocolate. We got four kids. I haven't cooked a meal since Nov 1st and the husband has gained four pounds. He's not allergic to chocolate. Oh, and those bidets which attach to the toidy are *fabulous*. Another thing I'm allergic to is *something* TP manufacturers put into toilet paper. I'm allergic to life generally. I'm starting to get a migraine, just from typing the chocxxxxx word. (200-300 kids my old school tie.)
ReplyDeleteThe weird thing is I don't crave candy at all, or chocolate neither, but hey, if it's right there, somehow it jumps in my mouth.
DeleteWit, wit... Grammerly be damned. A copy editor whose 1st language is Basque. Doesn't understand English and stalls and screams when you use an idiom.
ReplyDeleteWait a minute, what do you use for toilet paper?
DeleteAs a kid we went out together after dark without parents trailing. We knew
ReplyDeleteall the neighbors, and we knew that Trick "or" Treat meant we had a power play. Soap in hand.😆
Just occurred to me...speaking of scamps...the same kid who dumped the whole bowl of the neighbor's candy in his sack was the one who burned down our garage.
DeleteTen years ago, when we moved into this house, we had a line out to the street. The crowd has lessened each year. This year we got a grand total of two kids. I'm beginning to take this personally.
ReplyDeleteOh, honey. You're probably right to.
ReplyDeleteThe last trick or treater we had was 15 years ago. He drove up in his car, got out, pulled a mask down over his face, and approached the house while I watched from a window. He knocked. I opened the door and received the directive. "Trick or Treat."
ReplyDeleteI dumped the bowl into his sack, and closed the door. He got back in his car and drove away.
Now we make sure the house is as dark as possible and no outside lights are on. No one knocks, or if he does, he knocks for thee.
I'm dying here.
ReplyDelete