Last year around this time, our doorbell rang while we were eating dinner. I looked outside and found a Halloween bag on our front porch. And just like Weirdgirl's husband, I was skeptical.
I brought it inside and showed it to Ella. "What's that?" she asked. "It's a bag of candy," I answered. "Huh? It's not even Halloween yet," she replied.
We had been booed. The bag contained candy and instructions to do the same to two of our neighbors. Since I am a cynical bastard with a deep hatred of chain letters, the booing stopped at our house. What was going to happen anyway? Razorblades in my kids' apples?
But don't think I'm against all Halloween games. In fact, there is a game we played when I was a teenager that I may have to start in my neighborhood this year.
Rules For The Game That Hath No Name
The game is quite simple to play:- Agree on an object (garden gnome, plastic jack-o'-lantern, hot pink vibrator, etc.).
- Randomly pick someone to be the initial keeper of the object.
- The first person goes to another person's house, puts the object on the doorstep, rings the doorbell, and then runs like hell.
- The new person has to put it on someone else's front porch.
- When placing the object on the doorstep, if you are caught before leaving the property, you must leave with the object and place it on someone else's doorstep.
- Objects can only be left on the doorstep between 7:00 PM and 11:00 PM.
- Whoever (Whomever? Didn't I learn anything from The Office last week?) is left holding the object at 11:00 PM on Halloween night buys all participants a twelve-pack of beer (or a bottle of wine if you're one of those people).
And we had waaaaay too much fun doing it. We would scope out our victims and carefully plan our attack. But we weren't the only ones putting way too much effort into the game. There was one man who would sit in a rocking chair on his porch all night long just so he wouldn't get stuck with the witch.
During our senior year, we started getting cocky. We would actually phone our victims and warn them with a menacing, "The witch is on the way!" Yeah, we could've been out chasing girls but instead we were delivering witches to the front porches of forty-year-old men.
My priorities have always been pretty screwed up.
Tomorrow, I think I'll meet with the guys in the neighborhood and see if anyone wants to play the game. But first I'll need to think of a catchier name than The Game That Hath No Name. Any suggestions? Because opening the front door in the morning and yelling, "Honey! We've been The Game That Hath No Named" to your significant other is just too damn wordy.
But "Honey! We've been Pink Dildoed!" does has a nice ring to it, don't you think?
Song of the day: I Put A Spell On You by Screamin' Jay Hawkins
