The Stoner and the Doughnut

Turns out Nico freakin’ loves halloween. Or, he still freakin’ loves it. Whatever. It’s always a surprise to meet with his enthusiasm for the holiday. This year he was really into “haunted houses,” defined as any house with any kind of halloween decoration on it, from an uncarved pumpkin to a fully constructed cemetery complete with sound effects and a digital light show. That last type of haunted house can be further defined as The Davis Graveyard, or This Place. This Place is in Milwaukie, a small city close to Portland that I drive into regularly as it has the Best Library Ever and my mom and some other things that suck us over the city boundary. Therefore, we drove by This Cemetery a LOT. Sometimes on the way to our Milwaukie destination, sometimes as a detour on our way to our Milwaukie destination, and sometimes as a destination point all in itself. The key concept here is *a LOT.*

This glorified lawn decoration has grown wildly over the years and is starting to draw quite a crowd. Last year they had the local highschool dancers come out and perform a dance routine to that ghastly dead guy’s song “Thriller.” I believe there is video documentation of this on the web site. This year the home owners were able to acquire permits to have a couple of block parties and to close the road in front of the house to traffic so that people could stroll up and take a good gander at the house.

When Nico learned of this he of course wanted to go and we incorporated the first party into our plans for that day. Busy little bees that we are, our intention to go to the block party when it started at 5 was adjusted throughout the day and we didn’t end up making it over until after 7, which was well after dark. Still, Nico was excited and when he saw that we were parking the car and getting out he was nearly shaking with the anticipation of it all. As we approached the house, it became clear that the night show was a bit more intense than what we’d been driving by on a daily basis. Nico started clutching my hand harder and harder the closer we got, and after taking just a brief glance around decided that he wanted to go home. Ryan took him across the street and held him while I took a couple of pictures of the display and we went home.

Upon arriving home, Nico promptly built this rendition of the cemetery.

He also developed a mild fear of any of the “haunted houses” that he saw, and decided that he would only trick or tread “normal houses, not haunted ones.” After assuring him a few times that sometimes the houses that had halloween decorations up were the ones with good candy, he amended his plan so that we could go to the haunted houses as long as they weren’t “scary.” But this was kind of a moving, subjective definition for him.

The regular schedule of drive-bys continued, in addition to visits to a couple of other haunted favorites, but any time I suggested going there after dark I heard an emphatic NO! Same answer when I asked about trick or treating the Davis GraveYard, or going to the last block party.

Soon enough, Halloween arrived. I got an email from our favorite Japanese restaurant saying that they were offering free warm saki or cocktails to anyone who came in wearing a costume. This sounded like a great deal to us and Nico was game, so we decided to go there for dinner before heading over to trick or treat grandma and make the rounds in our neighborhood. We packed Nico’s real costume in the car so that we could slip him into it when the actual trick or treating commenced, and we went to the restaurant dressed as a witch, a skeleton, and Ryan.

As we approached the restaurant we became aware of just how hungry Nico was. He was getting super emotional, antsy, sweaty, all the signs of a tired and hungry boy. I was getting nervous. We drove around looking for parking before pulling into a dead end street. As we drove in Nico spotted a haunted house to his left, the steps littered with carved pumpkins. We continued to drive towards the end of the road and when Ryan turned around to park on the other side of the street Nico started screaming, “NO! Drive Through! Don’t park here, I want to drive BY the haunted house.” He was worried about having to walk past the house with the pumpkins on it. We parked anyway and I got him out of his seat and carried him past the house, after which he calmed down and we enjoyed our meal.

Note the pile of rejected YUCK fruit flavored candy

Dinner was great. Saki was great. We had a good time.

On the way back, Nico was suddenly overcome with a desire to trick or treat that house that had tormented him so: “I want to go there!” It seemed important to support his newfound courage, so I said ok and asked Ryan to go grab his trick or treat bag. We waited at the bottom of the steps while Ryan tore through the car looking for the bag, but he approached empty handed. We allowed ourselves a little sullenness over this missing component of the trick or treat tradition, but then Ryan had a brilliant idea, the one good thing about his “costume”. Nico could use a knit hat!

This idea was far better than nothing, so Nico mounted the steps with his skeleton mask on, his knit hat out, and his hand raised. After giving it a good knock, Nico stepped back and I heard a small scramble before the sudden waft of pot smoke greeted us at the door. A smiling, friendly looking stoner took a look at Nico and let a quick “awe” and awkward giggle escape. From behind him, a boxer wearing some kind of jacket came rushing to the door and Nico started cracking up with wild, hilarious laughter. The stoner took the dog back tossing back an apology that he didn’t think they had any candy. Just as he was stepping away, a more professional looking stoner came to the door and said “wait! hold on” and then walked away saying, “I didn’t know how many trick or treaters were going to come, so”… His voice trailed off and he disappeared for just a moment before quickly returning with a large pink box, “I got DOUGHNUTS!” He lifted the lid and sure enough, he had doughnuts. One of each kind. He kneeled down so Nico could look inside the box and asked us, “is it ok?” My fear-trained brain scoffed for just a second before I reconsidered and said, “Sure. Nico, do you want to pick one out?” He grabbed what I believe is called an “old-fashioned”, put it into his knit hat, and we headed off into the night.

Score!

And that is how Nico got a doughnut from a stone(r) on Halloween night.

And yes, we let him eat it.

~ by radishly on November 6, 2009.