Ah, Halloween. I love this day. What a wonderful excuse to do something crazy.
One of my favorite Halloweens was junior year of college. I was living in a house in the middle of a real neighborhood with the potential for lots of trick-or-treaters. We were talking about what we wanted to do when I remembered the bobbing ghost.
You see, when I was little, we used to go to the YMCA pumpkin patch to buy our jack-o-lantern. When you got there, you'd find a bunch of kids back by the hay jumping and screaming like crazy where someone had rigged this ghost on an invisible line. It would just hang there in the breeze until you tried to touch it. Then it would jump out of your reach. Sometime, the ghost would be replaced with a little pumpkin but the game was always the same. I don't remember every seeing where the person who did the pulling was hiding. It always seemed like the ghost could move all on its own.
Now, after telling this story, Roger, Anitra and Mike all decided this was the prank for us. We had this big tree out front by the walkway to the door. We found that if you climbed out of the second story window, you could hide behind the rise of the roof and still see the front walk. So we rigged up this ghost and ran the line through the tree and up to the roof. As the poor unsuspecting trick-or-treaters approached, we'd drop it on them and give them the fright of their lives. We actually freaked out quite a few moms as well. It was a blast!
I thought about trying something similar tonight. We have a great tree for it and will definitely get some kids. The real problem is our roof pitch is pretty scary and it's rainy out. Not much fun to cling to a roof in the rain. I have a feeling this set-up can only be accomplished in warm weather climates like San Diego. Ah well, it's a great trick if you can pull it off.
So I guess tonight I'll just dish out candy and try to keep Artie from eating any of the small children that wander onto our doorstep. Unlike last year, I hide all the Halloween candy so my husband (aka Candy Smurf) didn't eat it all. Next year thought, I'm going to plan something good. I'm one of those people who likes the trick over the treat. Hee hee.