In order to understand my first Halloween, it’s important to understand my daily routine. Mama and daddy took me for daily walks, twice a day — once in the morning and once at night. On our walks, we regularly bumped into our neighbors.

In other words, besides walking, mama and daddy also waved at people driving by in their cars, I got petted by kids on their bikes, and sometimes I got petted by our neighbors when mama and daddy chat with them.

My neighbors knew my name. They remembered mama as P-‘s mom and daddy as P-‘s daddy.  They, however, didn’t know where I lived. This was the way of life for a couple of years.

As time passed, Mama and daddy finally felt comfortable with the neighborhood and decided that they were going to hand out candy for Halloween, which meant that I got to wear a costume.

For my first Halloween, mama got me a lobster costume. Mama also got into the spirit of Halloween and dressed up as a french chef.

Mama and daddy were excited about handing out candy for the first time but they didn’t know how much candy they were going to hand out. So in order to ensure that they had enough candy to last through the night, Mama, who loves rules and made no exceptions, made up a rule where each kid can only get two pieces of candy.

When the kids started arriving, Mama realized that she knew most of them. The kids that we had previously met on the bikes screamed “HEY THIS IS P-‘S HOUSE.” The parents who we waved to as they drove by in their cars said “oh this is where you guys lived. we always wondered where yah lived”

Of course, the highlight of my first Halloween was a little girl with her younger brother. Mama gave the little boy two pieces of candy, one of them was a piece of gum. The younger brother started crying because he wasn’t old enough to chew gum. Mama, however, would have none of that and made no exceptions. Luckily, the older sister told her younger brother than she would trade with him so he would get two pieces of candy and she would get two pieces of gum.

If I was handing out candy, I would have given all the candy to the first kid that petted me.

Mama felt bad for an entire week after that but she still only gave two pieces of candy to each kid and is still a stickler for rules…