I Forgot I Was Married to An Immigrant

"What if we get shot?"
"What?! Why would we get shot?!"
"Well, we're just walking up to someone's door.  We don't know them.  What if they don't want us here?"
"Carlos, it's called Halloween.  This is what you do.  When people leave their porch light on, that generally means they welcome trick or treaters.  See those two houses over there?  No porch lights.  We don't knock on their doors."
"Well, I've never done this before.  I don't know."

Oh yea.  I forgot.
Because my husband has been in this country for more than fifteen years, and we have dressed up on Halloween before, attended Halloween parties, watched Halloween movies, I simply forgot that he had never actually pounded the pavement on the actual evening to ask for candy.

For my daughter, the evening was quite uneventful; we trick or treated at the 5 or 10 residents' homes who were actually participating, she freaked a bit over one man who answered the door dressed as a skeleton (full on garish makeup included), she loved the giant plastic spider one lady gave her, and learned to say "happy Halloween," and continued to say it all night, long after we had already left earshot of whoever she was supposed to be saying it to, of course.
She was an adorable kitty cat, and she will get to eat none of her candy.
Pretty basic.

But my husband is another story.  I think this one tiny evening, that literally consisted of walking the two buildings that make up our complex and the tiny dead end street across from it, will stick in his memory forever.  This was of course his first experience trick or treating, but it was also his first time trick or treating with his daughter.  He was shouting "woohoo!" on the quiet little street, and bursting out with "trick or treat!" as each door opened, which more than compensated for Celaya's lack of social interaction enthusiasm.  He wore a wig that he bought last year, covered with a viking hat my brother wore to the same party last year, and his regular street clothes.

He had so much fun that he went back down to the skeleton's apartment to hang out, check out their extravagant decorations, drink beer, and talk soccer.

I, on the other hand, put my very worn out kitty cat toddler down to sleep and teleconferenced in to a staff meeting for work that lasted two hours.

Still, thanks to my husband's constant ability to surprise me with his childlike joy for all things new and adventuresome, and of course thanks to my precious purr baby, this Halloween will remain firmly planted in my memory as well.

"Woohoo!"