My neighbors went all-out for Halloween this year. They transformed the bushes on their front lawn into a giant spider eating a man’s remains, rigged together a fountain of blood (not real) from trash-picked items, and placed a ghostly figure rattling a cage at the front steps. Several times last month friends came, told me they were here, and would be standing on the sidewalk gawking at the display when I came to the door to let them in. It was great. My contribution to Halloween decor this year was a sign with an arrow on it pointing at my neighbors' display.
Even if I really get into this “homeowner” thing, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to out-do my neighbors in decorating. But I had to do something this year to one-up them. Then I remembered: Per our annual report, Defector took in $3.2 million in revenue in its first year. I own part of Defector! We had a good year! I can afford big candy bars.
So I did it. I bought out a candy aisle of its remaining regular-sized Kit Kats and Hershey bars. (For bookkeeping purposes, Jasper, I purchased the bars with money I made from NBA Top Shot.) I wasn’t sure if I had enough big bars, so I also bought some regular "fun"-sized bars too. I filled up our novelty Halloween candy bowl and sat on the step in the early evening.
Several kids said “Wow,” like I’d just given them a bar of gold instead of chocolate. Parents were excited, too. “Big bars?!” one man said. “Are we in a rich neighborhood?” Yes, sir—rich in love for our fellow man.
Everyone kept calling them “big bars,” even though they were normal bars; we are just conditioned to expect inferior-sized bars on Halloween, I suppose. I ran out of big bars eventually and had to hand latecomers the little bars instead. But I feel like I made some kids’ nights when I had the big bars, and that made my night too. And isn’t that what Halloween is about: making some old doofus like me feel better?
It cost me like $40 extra. I’m going to do this every year now. You should too, if you can.
