Tales of Tricks and Treats

For my first Halloween in America, I went as Barbie in a cheap plastic cloak with a plastic mask that had the eyes poked out and a hole for the mouth. It was like a raincoat with a pink Barbie dress painted on it. I looked like a ghost with Barbie painted on me. My brothers went as G.I. Joes. It was a real bootleg Halloween. But we got a lot of candy. I think people felt bad for us, like, "God, this kid's outfit is terrible."

-- Jean Jiao, third-year College student

One time we went to my friend's house to pick him up for trick-or-treating, and he had what we thought was a dummy sitting in a chair on the sidewalk in front of his house. We went to ring the bell, but no one answered, so we were walking away down the sidewalk and he jumped up out of the chair and tackled me. It scared me half to death, and we started fighting because I didn't know who it was.

-- Shawn Lipsey, fourth-year College student

Actually when I was really little, the first time when I went trick-or-treating, my parents were teaching me how to say "trick-or-treat." But the first door that I went up to, my parents asked me "well what do you say?" and I said "Bud Light," because of the TV commercial. My parents were definitely pretty embarrassed, I think I was only 4.

-- Claudia Verdirame, second-year College student

When I was a little kid I was a bobcat, and I forget exactly what I was wearing but my brother had a Daniel Boone hat, you know, with the tail on it. So I stuffed it down my pants and had the tail coming out. My favorite costume was in college. It was one of those costumes where I started making it before I knew what I was making. My roommate had a sheet with leaves printed on it, and then I went into the yard and gathered a bunch of leaves and sticks and stuff like that, and put them on it. And I found a crazy mask of the sun, one of the ones that covers half of your face. And I didn't know what I was until I put it on, but with all the leaves and stuff and the sun, I was photosynthesis.

-- John Neal, Charlottesville resident

One year I went as a Q-Tip, but everyone thought that I was a tampon. I thought it was a good idea. As for pranks: when I was in high school the big rival football game was on Halloween, and we dumped a bunch of baby crickets all over their school, all over their air conditioning vents. And they were some kind of African cricket that breeds like 1,500 times a second. We got in big trouble.

-- Mary Lorraine Stewart, fourth-year College student

I broke my toe trick-or-treating one time. It was raining so I slipped and I broke my toe, but my friends wouldn't go back home with me, so I had to walk and trick-or-treat with them because I didn't know the way back. So I had to trick-or-treat with a broken toe all night long. It was really painful. I was in sixth grade. It was my last Halloween experience.

-- LeeAnn Merritt, first-year College student

So, my friends and I were bored on Halloween, and we went around and picked peoples' pumpkins. Then we gathered them and drove around and stuck them in some random guy's pick-up truck. When he woke up the next morning, there were, like, 75 pumpkins all piled up in his truck.

-- Carl Carter, second-year College student

My first-year hall dressed up as angels for Halloween, and we all looked very cute and angelic. As we were walking home from Sigma Nu, there was a drive-by egging. It was a car full of guys, obviously. My hallmate was hit in the leg, and it left a huge egg-shaped bruise. We felt so bad for her because we had all looked so darn cute. I mean, who would egg an angel?

-- Becky Kinlein, third-year College student

I was IMing with my mother the other day and we were just talking about random stuff. I was telling her about some problem I had, and she said, "Oh, sweetie, life was so much simpler when you just wanted to be a Care Bear." I was born in England and I moved here when I was 6, so I didn't really get it about being a cool American kid. So, when I was 7 years old, I was Funshine Bear for Halloween, and I was in a little parade. All the other kids made fun of me, and I didn't understand why, because nothing's cooler than the Care Bears!

-- Adam Segaller, second-year College student