I haven’t even talked about Halloween this year…which is crazy because we’ve decorated, crafted, made at least 3 batches of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, while Princess Sparkle begs to listen to this song hourly. We are definitely in the Halloween spirit. Additionally, I’m really excited for our costumes this year. The past two years have been all about the princesses for Ms. Sparkle Pants–which made it easy for me–but I hatched this costume idea a couple years ago and luckily Sparkle Pants was on board! As of tonight both of the girls costumes are finished. High fives.
Seriously, these girls are going to be knock-your-socks-off-cute.
Anyway, in preparation of the upcoming festivities I’ve asked my husband to be a guest contributer today and share probably what is one of my very favorite childhood stories of his, and it just so happens to center around this wonderful holiday we call Halloween.
Without further ado, here is his story as dictated to me last night:
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One Halloween when I was about 12 or 13 years old, my friends and I decided that while we were probably too old to be trick or treating, we wanted to go one last year and we wanted to go out with a bang. We planned a trick or treating route that went from my friend Josh’s house to his grandma’s house, which was about a 2 mile distance. We planned to meet his family at his grandma’s house at the end of the evening to get a ride home. The weather on this particular Halloween was terrible, it was rainy and cold and there weren’t many people out at all. Early in the evening, I distinctly remember seeing a little kid dressed up as Alf (the TV show alien). He even had a pillow case with Alf on it. I don’t know why he stuck in my head, but I guess I used to like to watch the show. So with the bad weather and not very many people trick or treating, the houses we were knocking on gave us even more candy. Every kids dream come true. By the time we were getting close to Josh’s grandma’s house my pillow case was getting really heavy. Then when we were a block or two away from our destination we noticed a group of four or five teenager getting out of a parked car. They approached me and my friends and suddenly one of these ruffians ran up to me and grabbed my pillowcase. But I was not going down with out a fight. I held on to that pillow case with all the strength of a wiry, 12 year old boy. When I wouldn’t let go the punk finally put me in a headlock. A legit, WWF, Macho Man Randy Savage headlock and squeezed until I had no choice but to let go. I watched as he got back in the car with his friends and drove away with all ten pounds of my hard earned candy. I looked around and I couldn’t see my friends anywhere and I didn’t know which house was Josh’s grandma’s. With a heavy and bewildered heart, I resignedly sat down on the curb. After a couple of minutes one of my friends came back–he had managed to out run those butt-head teenagers and thus still had his candy. But Josh was missing. After what seemed like forever, Josh’s dad’s car–a Ford Bronco–rumbled down the street and stopped in front of us. Together we went to Josh’s grandma’s house and it was there that Josh told us what happened. First, let me stop and explain a little about Josh’s dad. He was a plumber, complete with a mullet and goatee who loved to play softball and swear at bad drivers. He was pretty awesome. The rest of the story comes from Josh. So, like me Josh had his candy snatched by one of the meatheads. He quickly ran to his grandma’s house and found that his dad was just pulling into the driveway. He told his dad what happened and off they went. His dad wasted no time catching up to those kids. He pulled in front of their car, jumped out and pulled the driver out of the car before the kid could wrap his head around what was happening. Josh’s dad told them to surrender the loot in what I’m positive was a fury of cuss words that rained down upon their fearful ears. I just remember Josh saying, “You should have seen the look on the kids face as he handed over the candy.” Back at Josh’s grandma’s house we unloaded the bags of candy and quickly realized we had recovered more than just our 2 pillowcases. It was then among the 4 or 5 stolen bags of candy that I saw it. It was the unmistakable Alf pillowcase I had seen earlier that evening. Poor kid, I thought as we dumped the bag of candy and divided it into thirds. Undeniably, the best Halloween ever.
I bet your husband has a million good stories. He was in my ward one year at BYU when we lived on condo row. I wonder if he remembers the story where he shot a bird out of a tree during FHE. Poor bird. (a friend of mine forwarded me your blog about a year ago, and I've been hooked ever since)
Oh my gosh, that was just undeniably the best Halloween blog ever.
hahaha. halloween justice!
Awesome! I bet he was sugar high for MONTHS with that much loot! But poor Alf. 🙁
I love this story! So I told it to my two boys, 11 & 9. They really loved how the "cool" dad came to the rescue!
That's fantastic! What a great dad, taking down those teenagers. I wonder if they ever tried it again.