Halloween at the Zartimus household.

A freind of ours came over to help hand out Halloween loot so I was able to stand in front of my house motionless in a 7 foot tall Grim Reaper costume holding a huge scythe while my wife took the kids door to door. I've done this a few times over the years but I've managed never to do it two years in a row, which lulls the neighborhood kids into a sense of complacency. A few years I've even put the Reaper out on a body stand which makes it look like someone is standing there in a costume. But this year it was the real thing.

The suit has a two-way material on the front which allows the wearer to see what's coming up the driveway and if the kid is over 3 and a half feet tall, well that's old enough to freak out! Ya gotta be sneaky though, sometime you have to let one or two go by to establish that false sense of security before scaring the last few. And when I mean scare, it's rarely jumping out and screaming bloody murder, in that get-up you just have to do a turn or lean over at them to get a good scream out of them.

The big kids are my favorite. The kids that are probably a bit to old to be milking the free candy thing but do anyway. If you're old enough to date, then you shouldn't be goin' "TRICK OR TREAT!" although it's better than tossing a brick through my front window just to be funny.

One big kid I recognized as having scared him before through his earlier formative years, but he wasn't sure if it was the fake suit or the real thing. Suprise! I tossed a video cam in the corner and recordred some, although I missed some of the really good ones pausing the thing so as not to waste tape. I posted it on youtube. It's too bad Halloween only comes once a year!