Greedy Candymongers

1^st of November in 2010

Dear Cassi,

First of the month and yesterday I did something I haven't done in years: give out Halloween candy. This is a practice I don't care for because of what the house looks like. As the kids came by I grew more and more self conscious. I hadn't combed my hair or showered since the night before. Worse off, the bushes hadn’t been cut just as Paul has long neglected the lawn. The front shrubbery was so bad off that the children had to walk around the bushes to get to the door.

I gave out candy for about an hour as I mopped up the kitchen some. My home is a place where garbage comes up like weeds and rot flourishes in every spot just out a view. I figure that if I spent two hours a day cleaning I'd probably just keep up with the mess Paul leaves let alone my own. I was a mess in a mess catering to a bunch of candy goobers.

The kids themselves were a lot cruder then I had thought they would be. Six-year-olds cursing like sailors in the dark of the warm California night. The first kids of the night were my neighbor Mickie’s children. The only thing about that was that his daughter had the smallest candy sack I had ever seen for Halloween. As she walked away she told her father that she needed a new sack because hers was half full. Then came the foul mouthed kids with pillow cases as candy sacks instead of pumpkins, and a few girls dressed too adult for Halloween trick or treating.

I was handing out candy to mothers and children alike. There was one kid, and he came by twice, who was using his backpack from school as a candy sack. Halloween appeared to be about greed in my neighbor hood instead of the fun it had been in my day. What happened to the holidays? I used to get into costumes because that was part of the fun, but these kids didn't do much more then put on a mask. One kid had a piece of paper that said "this is my costume," as if she had gotten up that morning and remembered it was Halloween. I don't think I saw a single handmade costume like the ones I had when I was a kid. I remember my mother making me a robot costume. I grant it was one of the least involved she had ever made, and it chafed the shoulders, but at least that was original.

Shortly after eight I turned the porch lights out. I left the house in darkness to discourage the more greedy candymongers. Some kids roamed the neighborhood even as late as after nine looking for houses with the lights still on hoping to get a few more pieces of candy for the year. I don't know if I can blame them because the candy has gotten smaller and smaller. If they could come up with a candy flavored breath spray in individual size I think they'd give those out for Halloween next year. That's why I gave out candy by the handful. At least I didn't feel bad about giving the kids a jolly rancher.

On the bright side, I finished the 'about the author' section for my novel, so now I just have to sit back and wait. I could spend the rest of my life working on a document that size, but now it's time for me to move on to another project. With so many demands on my time getting the job done right takes forever, but I've ironed out most of my problems so the next project should be accomplished in half the time.

I'm hoping to turn one of my novel into a movie script. It seems like it's just easier that way, because the primary editing can be done on the script in the space of four hours when the editing for a novel takes four months. Again, in my last novel I changed format, or word processor programs, three times. It was a debacle to remember, but not one to repeat. Like many things, the first novel is the hardest. As it was with my first comic and my first play I had to grow to get the job done. Now it's just time to put my back into it and push until it comes.

Stay safe, Cassi

Richard Leland Neal