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Halloween? Count me in.
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Nowadays it’s because I’m out in the country and almost never get any trick-or-treaters, so I get to eat all the candy myself.
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But back the day, when I was a kid, I had to work for my candy. And I was more than happy to make the rounds.
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My brother Andy and I always dressed as hobos. Laziest costume ever. A few ratty clothes and some black smudges on the face.
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It was always cold, so we wore sweaters and parkas underneath. We were portly hobos.
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Greedy? I’ll say we were greedy. We’d go out, fill up a bag with loot, come home, dump the candy on our bed and head back out for more.
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We were still at it when I was a sophomore in high school and Andy was in seventh grade.
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But that year was different. I was armed. With about six cans of shaving cream.
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Did I steal my dad’s stuff? No. I was working after school as a stock boy at a drug store where I had access to all sorts of exotic supplies.
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007 Cologne, for example.
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James Bond was just hitting his stride as a merchandizing phenom. My classmates never knew what I might smell like when I came to school.
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But you can’t soap windows with cologne, and soap itself seemed like pretty tame stuff when it came to committing Halloween mayhem.
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Ah, but shaving cream! It really spurted out of some of those old cans. Like a flamethrower and fire extinguisher combined.
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So off we went, ready to commit mayhem.
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But there were problems. We lusted after candy, so we spent most of our time going door to door, collecting loot.
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The big problem: I was a good kid. A kid who behaved. I didn’t have a lot of experience being naughty. (I’ve made up for it since, of course.)
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I thought about spraying some trees as we went along, but it seemed so wrong. My artistic soul rejected the idea. It was cheap, meaningless, unworthy.
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We’d gone home, dumped our loot, and were out looking for more. Time was running out.
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We were on a quiet cross street, looking for porch lights that were still on, when Fate intervened. I realized we were standing in front of our junior pharmacist’s house. There was something perversely poetic about the thought of spraying his house with the drug store’s shaving cream.
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But there were lights on in the house and I was too chicken to make a frontal assault. My brother and I snuck down the driveway and saw a beautiful sight out back: the garage.
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It was turned sideways and painted dark green. Like a giant sketch pad for anyone who was going to do their sketching with shaving cream.
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But what to draw, what to write?? My mind went blank, and my artistic soul was taking a nap. Fret, fret, fret. Suddenly, inspiration! — I’d write “Hell’s Angels” in big, BIG letters.
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I stepped back and gauged the area I had to work with. Huge! — did I have enough shaving cream?? Time to throw caution to the winds and be bold.
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Ker-SPOOOOSHHH!! It sounded so loud! I was ready to jump in the bushes, but all was quiet.
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H-E-L-L-’S…
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I stepped backed and checked. Perfect.
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Now for the finish. I ker-SPLOOSHED away, concentrating hard.
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I stepped back.
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