Monday, October 31st

45.)

Halloween in college wasn't all that exciting. In high school, a lot of kids dressed up, but nobody cared all that much anymore. Actually since the whole Covid thing, trick-or-treating was all-but-canceled. It really put a damper on my mom's house-decorating. She built a six-foot candy delivery slide from the front door to our porch, but she only had three or four trick-or-treaters. I hoped things would be different this year.

I wondered idly if Blossom dressed up; we didn't have class together on Mondays. Even if she didn't, I knew she'd have a slutty costume for her party thing tonight. A part of me wished I was going.

Around six, Lin picked me up at my house. The streets were lightly peppered with kids in costumes and littler kids in wagons. I looked out Lin's car window with a touch of jealousy; I couldn't even remember the last time I was pulled in a wagon. It was probably for a hay-ride or something.

As the night grew darker, the streets grew a little more crowded. It wasn't anything like when I was a kid. I guess the ritual of Halloween was slipping away as generations went by. If I ever had a kid, they probably would have virtual trick-or-treating or something. Bitcoins to buy Smarties on the Halloween.gov website. They'd get Amazon drone-dropped on your porch within the hour.

"There's a severe lack of hijinks," Lin said, fiddling with her camera settings.

We were out front of a park in the middle of town. A couple teenagers were playing Ghost in the Graveyard without the graveyard. Maybe we should have gone to a real graveyard.

"It sure is a far cry from when we were kids."

"Actually we didn't have trick-or-treating in my neighborhood," Lin shrugged. "We had a Halloween church event instead, and you could win candy. It was actually pretty cool."

Oh yeah, Lin used to go to church a lot. I had only been to church twice: once with my friend in middle school because I was curious and once because my grandpa died.

"One year when the pastor was sick, everyone got together to raise funds for the Halloween candy and it filled an entire car trunk and you could just come and scoop out what you wanted. But the issue was that nobody thought to get individually wrapped candy so it was all just loose candy in a car trunk and our parents were all weird about it. I was eight. We went back to the Church Event Candy Raffle after that."

Whenever Lin recalled stuff from her past, she did it so... academically. Like she was reading it out of a history book. It was like she didn't know how to properly reminisce.

"Maybe trick-or-treating will make a bold comeback, or maybe it'll go the way of the space race."

"It's kind of sad," I sighed. "I wonder what other things we had growing up that kids these days won't have." Will they be able to lie about their ages to enter adult-only ABDL chatrooms? It would be better if they couldn't, but that kind of stuff had been so formative to me. How would I have grown if I was born fifteen years earlier, and I didn't have the internet? Or fifteen years later and I wasn't allowed to use it? I would probably be a different person.

"I don't think movie theaters will ever really come back, but the biggest tragedy of time is that a lot of Walmarts aren't open 24 hours anymore. I remember sneaking out with friends in high school and making ourselves a nuisance at 24-hour stores. I know it doesn't sound like much of a rebellion, but my Mom's pretty intense. It felt like I was tearing down the Berlin Wall just to sneak out. Now we'd have to go to... what? A park? With trees? Ugh."

"Apparently." I motioned to the kids in the park in front of us. "So, since there isn't much mischief to photograph, do you want to head back to my place for movies?"

Mom paid a four dollar rental fee for that new Scream movie, which was stupid because I could have just downloaded it on my laptop. We also had Halloweentown on Disney+.

"Movies sound good. Can we get some Mikes Hard on the way?" Lin did her best to hide her disappointment at the lack of hijinks, but her pout was obvious.

"You can do whatever you want," I said. Lin was twenty-one. I was twenty-one in March. My mom didn't really care about alcohol; I think her flippancy with it was what made me so flippant about drinking in the first place. When something isn't taboo, it's not that interesting. My mind circled back to diapers and baby stuff and the talk I had with Blossom.

"I'm staying at Blossom's again next weekend," I said to Lin.

"Lots of time with this girl," Lin teased. "You sure there's nothing going on?"

"She's so out of my league, we are basically playing different sports," I sighed. "But I do like the quiet of her beach house. It's good for writing."

"You know that 'out of someone's league' thing comes from the societal belief that the way you look or act has intrinsic, measurable value, which is patently untrue. Better question: do you want there to be something going on?"

"No," I said automatically. But as the nanoseconds passed, my brain twisted those words around. "I don't think so..." I wanted something to be going on, I guess. I wanted to dress up in cute baby clothes with her. I wanted to act out stupid story chapters. I wanted to build fantasies around us. But that wasn't what Lin meant.

"Mmmm, well it sounds like someone wants to tell more of the story than just those two letters. So if you decide there's more to it, you know I'm gonna listen to you. And no judgment; weekend rendezvous cheerleaders need love too, you know!"

I rolled my eyes. I knew she was trying to be supportive, but it's not like I could talk about this stuff with her. At least, not any of the stuff that I really loved about my time with Blossom. I'd have to settle for the stuff between the lines.

"She's cool. She makes me feel like... I dunno. It's okay to just do whatever I want to do. And she and I are very different, so getting new perspectives on stuff is always fun. And her kitchen... gosh, it's a really great kitchen."

"And she has a beach house? Some people have all the privilege in the world, don't they? I'm glad she makes you feel like you can be yourself though, because you don't even let yourself be yourself half the time."

"Ain't that the truth," I laughed. And Lin didn't even know the half of it.

Lin drove both of us back to my place. There was a pair of trick-or-treaters at the door. We waited until my mom gave them candy and they took off before we headed inside.

"You're back early," Mom said.

"Not a lot going on," I shrugged. By the looks of the candy bowl - almost entirely full - there wasn't much going on here either.

Lin went to take a fun-size snickers off the top of the bowl, and my Mom slapped her on the wrist.

"Candy is for the children, Lin."

"Trick or treat?" Lin sheepishly grinned.

My mom relented and rolled her eyes, motioning to the candy bowl.

Lin helped herself.

That was a cute interaction. Acting like a kid to get candy? Or any reward, really... positive reinforcement of childish behaviors and punishment for adult ones? There was a story idea there. Then again, Academy B was quite similar.

"I'm gonna get the movie set up," I said.

"Don't forget to turn off the lights!" Mom said.

Lin and I both groaned. How was I the child of such a horror movie fan?

I wished there were more trick-or-treaters. Usually they would interrupt my mom's scary movies every few minutes, but this year it was more like ten or fifteen. I had to close my eyes for half of the scenes, but even then the sounds scared me. I passively fantasized about wetting myself out of fear, and then I'd have to wear diapers any time we watched something scary together. Maybe I could build an association and actually start enjoying the movies then. Or, better yet, maybe it would make me afraid of baby stuff. Win-win.

Unfortunately, I think the whole 'wetting yourself out of fear' thing was just a trope. I'd been scared thousands of times and I had never wet my pants because of it.

"The tropes in horror movies are so interesting, because they're like anime; there's only six characters and every horror movie reuses them. There's The Bitchy Cheerleader, The Loyal Boyfriend, The Jock, The 'Knows What's Happening And Nobody Listens To Them', The Screamer, and The Survivor slash Protagonist."

Lin liked to talk through movies.

"Who do you think you'd be? I'm definitely The Screamer."

"Tag yourself," I said, diffusing the tension of another scary moment. "I'm the 'Knows What's Happening and Nobody Listens To Them'."

"I wish I could say I'm the Survivor," Mom added, unwrapping a Kit-Kat. "But I'm probably the Jock."

"Oh yeah, how so?" I teased. My mom didn't have the coordination to make it down a flight of stairs, let alone play a sport.

"The Jock is always too over-confident," Mom said. "They always die because they think they're invincible."

Hm... yeah, actually that did sound like my mom. Once again, how was I the child of someone with so little social anxiety?

"So we still need a Bitchy Cheerleader, Loyal Boyfriend, and Survivor, and then we can make our own horror movie."

"Lin, dear, wouldn't that mean we all die?" Mom asked.

"Well, all of us but The Survivor," Lin clarified.

"Oh, well that's reassuring."

Blossom could have been the Bitchy Cheerleader, I thought. If only I had two more friends.