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TIFU by telling all my neighbors I was super poor thinking that's how you celebrate Halloween

Obligatory this didn't happen today, but I still cringe every year around Halloween when I think about trick or treating.

Some background: My family lived in the US for about a decade before moving to Belgium in the late 1960s. At the time of the FU, Belgium was a country that did not celebrate Halloween.

Come back with me if you will to the 1990s, a time of denim outfits, chocolate cigarettes and songs recorded off the radio. I am in primary school in a rural region of Belgium. Everyone knows everyone in my tiny village of about 400 inhabitants.

It is the end of summer and I am planning my birthday. My birthday parties are somewhat famous, and it is mostly due to the fact that I always manage to mix a little something American into the party, courtesy of the family members who still live there. We would have cake but then instead of apple juice my mom would bring out a bright pink, candy-flavored pitcher of Kool-Aid. Or we would make sugar cookies but instead of basic shapes we would have access to this huge box of animal-shaped cookie cutters.

This particular year, I didn't know what to do to make my birthday special. I just started planning all the basics and figured I would think of something eventually. I picked out the candy I would serve (2 trays full), decided on the cake I would have (vanilla with chocolate frosting) and selected the music (making sure to include that one song which had a choreography I learned in dance class so I could teach everyone).

It is now the big day and I have decided to improvise. By now my friends have arrived and we’re all eating candy and generally being silly and having a good time. And suddenly it hits me: what better way to celebrate than to do Halloween! My mom told me once about how in the US children go around the neighborhood asking for candy. And here we are, a bunch of kids who love candy, it’s perfect!

Now, as I would soon find out, there was quite more to it than just going around the neighborhood asking for candy. First of all, Halloween is on a specific date, not on some random day at the end of summer. Also, and probably more importantly, the neighbors are in on it.

So here we are, all putting our jackets on and as we get out the front door I shout “See you in a few, we’re off to do Halloween!”. My mom somehow doesn’t stop me, probably because she has no idea how wrongly my tiny mind has connected the dots from her anecdote on Halloween.

I confidently lead all my friends across the street, so proud of giving them a glimpse of life in the exotic United States. I reach my neighbor’s front door and ring the doorbell. The elderly couple soon opens the door and suddenly I freeze. What now? How am I supposed to get candy from them? I have to think of something fast, everyone is watching me, and my poor brain, although it tries its best, comes up with nothing better than “Hi, I’m your neighbor from across the street. It’s my birthday today and we’re too poor to afford candy. Can I have some?” The neighbors exchange this weird look, which in retrospect must have been pity, go to their kitchen and bring me back a bag of candy, along with some well wishes.

I thank them triumphantly and move to the next house. Since my spiel worked, I keep using it as I go from house to house. Although every time I go to a new house, I get this feeling that something is not right. Like, really not right. I find myself skipping more and more houses and end up just cutting our Halloween short. I head home with a garbage bag (courtesy of one of the neighbors) filled with food that was nothing like I expected: incomplete candy bar multi-packs, clearly open bags of candy, a boxed Swiss cake roll, and various leftover pantry food.

I come home trying to play it cool. I stack up all the food from the garbage bag on the dining room table like some weird trophy, all the while trying to understand where I went wrong. We all feel too awkward to eat any of it.

And then it was time for cake.

Years later, a neighbor made a comment to my mom about all her "hardship" when I was growing up and she realized that this whole time our village believed she was too poor to afford candy on my birthdays.

TL;DR: Decided to celebrate Halloween on some random day in a country that had no idea what Halloween was. What I thought would be a fun birthday activity turned into me going door to door telling my neighbors I was too poor to afford candy so they would give me some.

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