Diary of a hangover

What happens when your street is Halloween famous

Six months prior

Wake up. Start worrying about Halloween decorations. You only have three cheesecloth cobwebs, eight fake spiders and an inflatable dragon. Will this be enough?

July

Lose a week of your life scrolling Amazon and at your lowest, Temu, for extra Halloween decorations. You consider buying a blow-up coach and horses but manage to stop yourself. You order another box of cheesecloth cobwebs.

Last year you draped your front fence, trees and messy shrubbery in the stuff, lashing on spiders using cable-ties, but it looked a bit thin. You can never have enough cobwebs or enough lollies when your street is famous for Halloween.

Nobody mentioned this when you bought the house, incidentally, that children and their parents would come from miles around to trick or treat on your street. They would come on foot. They would come by pushchair. They would come in cars, parked in neighbouring streets because yours would be so jammed. They would come by people-carrier. They would have maps. The wise ones would bring water, sturdy shoes and mixed nuts. One year, a news crew would film the hordes. Eventually, there’d be police foot patrols and traffic-calming, and the council would begin to find it interesting.

No, you had to find out the hard way.

August

Drive to Moore Wilson’s bulk and dry section, where restaurateurs buy toilet paper by the pallet and Jif by the bucket, to load up on wrapped sweets.

You do this because on the first Halloween you lived on your street, you bought two mini packs of Snickers on the morning itself and confidently thought you had it covered. In fact, you expected your new suburb to be so quiet that you took your kids to neighbouring Kelburn to trick or treat there.

Then you bumped into a neighbour who said she had six kilos of sweets ready to give out but was worried it wouldn’t be last the evening. You could see the whites of her eyes as she told you this.

This is when your psychodrama began.

You know that recurring nightmare where you’re about to sit a major exam but didn’t study, or you arrive at school in pyjamas, or you shit yourself on a date with a celebrity? That sickly mixture of shock and regret, that unwelcome knowledge that a public shaming is about to be yours but it’s too late to turn back the clock? That’s your flashback feeling whenever you recall your first, naive, casually ignorant Halloween in Karori.

In the lolly section there are sandbag-sized packages of toffees, Minties, and lollipops in medicinal colours. You wrestle six bags into your trolley and make the mistake of parking it in an aisle while you gaze in wonder at huge jars of gherkins. Then you notice another shopper lifting a bag of your sweets into her basket.

“Sorry,” she says, when she realizes they’re yours. “I thought they were…” and makes a gesture at staff in aprons arranging stock. Because who buys twelve kilos of Fruit Bursts?

“Where I live is famous for Halloween,” you say, to excuse yourself. “Everybody comes.” You tell her the name of your street. Somewhere above you thunder cracks, and a raven flies over the supermarket.

At home, you stash the sweets under the stairs. Your son will find the stash, work a hole in the plastic and stealthily remove two or three sweets a day. He probably pilfers fifty grams - maybe seventy-five.

This may prove crucial to your downfall in the days ahead.

September

Your husband tells you he’ll be at a three-night conference in the Waitākere Ranges in the last week of October. You feel this information vibrating off your eardrums and crackling along your auditory nerves to your brain, where it lights up in an electrical display of panic. Oooh, says your nervous system. Aaah.

You sense something of a pattern developing. Last Halloween he was very usefully on dog duty, keeping your poodle-mix calm indoors. The year before that he had Covid symptoms and sweated in the bedroom while hundreds thronged your carport. The year before that he was away for work. The year before that, he was a vampire.

What he has cleverly done is avoid the build-up of community expectation. Nobody’s stopping him in Karori Mall and asking him if he’ll be a witch again this year. That’s all on you, and you’ve done it to yourself.

You ask your therapist why you can’t bring yourself to do what many neighbours do, which is put a polite yet firm notice on the gate for the evening and go out to dinner. Many such households have lived on the street for years, raised their now-adult children here, and have earned the right to pass the torch. Others feel it’s getting out of hand. There’s been talk of closing the street, and of food trucks. Someone else is FURIOUS they can’t easily turn into their driveway once a year. But all views are respected. Nobody’s house will be egged. Halloween is a conscience vote. Everybody has the choice.

Not you, though. Your kids love it all too much. Sharon at the costume shop is expecting you. You can’t get out of this; you’re all in.

Early October

You pop to Creative Show Off to see Sharon. You absolutely love her. She has thousands of outfits on long rails, sectioned into exciting categories like MEDIEVAL. TWENTIES FLAPPER. GANGSTER. And SPACE.

Whenever you get there, she is always steaming something, ironing something, combing something, often with pins in her mouth, and always but never quite getting around to finishing a sandwich.

You tell her you might go as something else this year and of course she says no. You’re a witch. You’ve always been a witch. She digs out a rubber nose from a tub of rubber noses, finds you a velvet dress with long pointed sleeves, striped socks and a teal underskirt. She wants to know what else you’d like, and you say a blue blazer sized for a child and a rubber bald cap, for your son.

She asks what he’s going as and you say, Christopher Luxon.

Sharon always gives you a generous discount and a cheerful farewell. You walk along Thorndon Quay with a broomstick.

Ten days before

You check the long-range forecast. Rain, rain, rain, sunshine on the 31st, though with a strong northerly. You feel instant relief. Then dread.

Halloween will not be cancelled.

One week before

You suggest to your son that you make a National Party rosette for his lapel, so everybody immediately understands his costume.

“Naw, that makes it too political,” he says.

“You are literally going as the Prime Minister,” you say.

He eventually agrees. You go to Spotlight and get two types of blue card, a length of blue ribbon, and a square of navy felt. You and the lady at the cutting counter have an involved conversation about hot glue guns.

You decide to call in the crack troops and suggest to your son’s friends’ parents that they all come over on the day and use your house as a base. You’ll give the kids an after-school tea, and they can change upstairs and take a pillowcase each for their candy. You’ll pay the adults in pizza and wine to help you hand out sweets. Everyone agrees and happier still, one of the Mums is an extremely gifted make-up artist who will do everyone’s looks. This is the most organized you’ve ever felt.

One heroic neighbour handling logistics, is collecting sweets donated by the community and dropping them to participating houses. She asks if you’ll need any. You have 12kg (no, you don’t; you’ve 11.9) and your mate Bee has just dropped off another six kilos. You say you’re fine. With this many sweets, you’ll surely make it to the three-hour mark.

Days to go

It feels like the orcs are massing. Questions are being asked of your neighbourhood on the community Facebook page. Your street prefers not to advertise online, but some parents want more details than are strictly necessary. There’s a brief flurry of disquiet that this year, that nobody’s making a map.

Who needs a fricking map? You’ve literally been on the news!

WHAT EXACTLY IS HAPPENING?? one poster insistently asks. I HAVE A FIVE-YEAR-OLD???

October 30 - bedtime

The carport is swept, Halloween gear is unpacked, the wine is chilling, the costumes are hanging, your mind is racing. Guy ropes. Ropes and your husband’s kettlebells will stop the dragon from blowing down the street. Genius! Don’t forget to bring them downstairs.

October 31

3am Kettlebells.

9am On the drive back from the school run, you count several houses already decorated. One has rigged a PVC pipe pointing downwards from their porch, where they will whizz sweets to waiting children at street level. There are front gardens styled as graveyards, skeletons in windows, and creepy Victorian children.

There’s no time to lose! You need to get out there! But first you’ve got to do stupid pointless things like eat, wash, walk the dog! But you don’t brush your hair, because you woke up naturally witchy.

11am You spend an hour stringing cobwebs and rigging spiders. You open the Amazon box of cobwebs but when you shake them out, they’ve sent you a length of white fabric without pre-cut holes. You could’ve got this from Spotlight! Who orders cheesecloth from Shanghai?

You stab it furiously all over, with scissors.

12pm You drag the hand-weights down the stairs and into the front garden. You nearly do your back in. You plug in the dragon and it self-inflates, expanding its wings, rearing its ugly head and extending four fat legs and a spiky tail. It drifts dangerously in the breeze. You wrestle with it several times and eventually tie it down by using weights, jamming part of it into the mailbox, and roping its neck to the gate arch.

A man with no English walks past and laughs delightedly in your face.

1pm You tip all the sweets into one of those rubbery laundry tubs. It’s so heavy you can’t move it. Kindly friends have donated even more. You feel briefly at one with your community.

2pm Your amazing friend arrives with a range of professional make-up equipment and lays it out among the fruit, crackers and popcorn. You agree to be teal, to match your underskirt. She gently paints your face, neck and ears with a series of soft brushes. The sensation is cool and soothing. She even paints the insides of your nostrils, which is surprisingly pleasant. She does a wart.

Being paid such close attention is lovely. You close your eyes and enjoy it, like one of those rescue squirrels being combed by a toothbrush on Facebook. You know this will be the best bit of the afternoon, because as she finishes, the children arrive.

3.30pm It’s T-minus one hour! In the make-up queue, one child is being given a slashed face! Another friend will become a cat with a bloody mouth, but she is still beautiful! Another friend will become the Queen of Hearts with white cheeks and tiny rosebud lips! In your dining room is a boy in feathery red wings and a devilish mask, a ninja, a Doctor Who, and a conservative Prime Minister, shouting that he’s going to build a highway!

The doorbell rings and the pizza guy meets the devil and Chris Luxon, who remembers to say thank you.

Trick or treaters are seen across the street. It’s far too early. Your sign in front of the garage says trick or treating will begin at 4.30pm, and you won’t be out there a minute before.

4.11pm You are out there.

At first, you and your friends are sitting around with sweet bowls in the sunshine, imagining this might be a quiet year. You make the foolish mistake of giving out two or three sweets at a time, to tiny witches, a couple of Spidermen, and a team of tween Barbies.

4.45pm The HORDES! THE HORDES! Your street is a mosh-pit, six men deep! There are babies dressed as bees and pumpkins, toddlers as dinosaurs, titchy serial killers, a Grinch, a boy in a brown cardboard box with PUBLIC TOILETS written on the side, many Wednesday Addams, killer clowns, angels and devils, minions, blood-spattered doctors and a kid dressed as a bicycle lane - possibly the most frightening costume in the suburb.

AND STILL THEY COME! These children are emptying your buckets faster than you can fill them! Meanwhile your dazzling friends are being asked for selfies and group photos - especially the artist herself, who is painted cactus-green and covered in prickles made of toothpicks. She mesmerizes children with her red contact lenses and is the breakout star of the party. All the kids are all very polite and the parents appreciative, but even so. WATER! WE NEED WATER!

5.30pm One sweet at a time!

One! You can have one! Can’t you see we’re running low?

You look each way along the street and it’s a supermarket of nasties and freaks. Cars drive slowly by, rubbernecking, including the cops. Officer! Officer! The authorities can’t help you now. You are neck-deep in under-twelves.

Some tiny ones arrive, uncertain, and their Dad points at you, saying, “Look! A blue witch. Do you know what happens if you throw water at a witch?” You pretend to melt, and then stick out a foot to show them the toy rat you’ve stuck to your sandal. You curtsy to sister witches. You can’t help your theatrics; the world’s a stage, this is a party, and everyone’s pretending. You love how nice everyone is being to children! You love how the children, for once, are in charge!

Your son briefly comes to help hand out sweets. One kid in a mask grabs a handful and runs. HEY! YOU GET ONE! shouts your son. He pursues the kid for a block or so, but the masked thief will deny it.

You send your husband a selfie.

Its dinnertime at the conference and delegates are sharing phone photos of their dressed-up kids, trick or treating all over the North and South islands this evening. Your husband shows his colleagues your picture saying, “And this is my wife.” He says they visibly recoil and look at him differently.

6.02pm You are out. Clean out.

You spend half an hour telling people you’re out. Clean out. You have a sign that says SPOOK YOU NEXT YEAR. One girl with mournful eyes tells you it’s okay you’ve run out. You both know it’s not. Dammit!

6.30pm You close the carport and your friends stagger inside the house. This has been a mighty Halloween. A sensation. Later, your Halloween WhatsApp group swaps intelligence. You learn one household counted 1,840 kids at their door this year.

8pm The street has at last gone quiet. This is the time you like best, snipping down the spiders and dropping them into a tub in the cool spring evening. The odd straggler goes past - two Barbies and a furry. You pick up drifting sweet wrappers and find the crumpled cardboard PUBLIC TOILET dumped in the lane. You have blue ears and blue-ringed eyes, even though you thought you’d got it all off in the shower. You can’t feel your feet and your tongue has gone thick. Ding, dong, the witch is dead.

12.30am You can’t sleep. There are too many faces in your head. You scroll real estate ads, fantasizing about living somewhere that doesn’t observe Halloween. You’ll get up to drink half a bottle of water and take a Panadol, even though you didn’t eat a single sweet, or open the wine. You are hungover. It will take days to recover from this.

YOU LOVE IT, a friend texted you earlier. You disagreed at the time. But in the dark, you know.

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Exaggerating is my personal hallmark, but here’s some proof of my brilliant friend Samantha Bell’s talent. And Belinda Robins, herself a Karori legend for her community spirit and zest for local life, made this fantastic video on the street. I’ve permission to share both here. How lucky am I to know these gals?

Make-up artist Samantha Bell