Wrong Door

A humorous recollection.

By Allie Hoggatt | Posted 10/11/08 | Updated 10/4/24

Be a Smartie. Don't forget the Halloween candy.

Let's see here… it was the end of October, October 31st to be exact, Halloween night and I was five years old… yeah that's about right. My parents had loaded my brother and I and our necessary costume paraphernalia into the mini-van and we set off on our way to my grandma's house so that the festivities could begin.

Everyone in my family knows that my uncle always has to steal some of Halloween's thunder every year, seeing as it's his birthday. So before we could get to the costumes and goodies we had to sit around and eat and sing and talk and then eat some more. Then when all of the adults had finally had enough of the gabbing, operation: transformation would begin… aka costume time!

If I remember correctly, that year I dressed up as the red Power Ranger (because my cousin stole the pink suit from me.) But I got over is and just told her that the Red Ranger was cooler anyways. Problem solved. I was ready and armed with my little pumpkin pail but yet again I had to wait for all of the slow-pokes in my family to get a move on.

"C'MON GUYSSSS!!!!" I would whine frequently. Finally we made it out the door and I set off to drain the neighborhoods of their candy with my entire family in tow.

This particular year my parents had an ingenious idea… they would pop the back hatch on the mini-van and all of the kids would occupy the trunk and we would drive from house to house jumping in and out of the car to go snag the delicious treats from every house we ventured to. I'm sure we all looked really cool.

We had looted about half of the neighborhood by nine-thirty that night and I was shoving candy in my face left and right, and since I was the oldest out of my siblings and cousins I regulated the candy trade. This may not seem fair to some but hey that's how seniority works, I was highly qualified. I could hear my parents in the front seats talking about returning to Granny's house to drop everyone off and head home since it was getting late but that certainly didn't fly with me. So I began scoping out my surroundings looking for a house to make this Halloween night worthwhile.

That's when I saw it. Down the street in a darkened corner, there was a house that had been elaborately decorated so that even the bravest of adults would be terrified upon approaching it. But not little old me! I begged my parents to take us to that house, pleading that if they did we wouldn't have to go anywhere else and we could go home right after. At first they said no because it would be to scary for us since we were young, but being stubborn I wasn't going to take that comment lying down, nothing was too scary for me. So after a little more begging they finally gave in.

We approached the house and I quickly jumped out of the van. On the way up to the door I could see the decor better and it looked scarier than it did up the street… I suddenly began to walk slower towards the door. Before I could even reach up to knock, the door flew open and out jumped this man in a bloody mask with a chainsaw! I literally wet my pants and ran away crying... after all c'mon guys I was five! Halloween

Next story: All-American Halloween Scare