Halloween Time

Around this time last year we were in the US and spent some time in Charlotte with our very dearest friends who will be shifting back to Sydney very very soon.  It was Fall, with beautiful colours, gorgeous temperatures and all I could see was how happy my friend was in her new life here surrounded by beauty and friends.  It was also the buildup to Halloween.  I'd heard about the supermarket aisles full of Halloween stuff (they were) and products repackaging themselves for a Halloween theme (yep), and to be honest I was kind of expecting it to be a little cheesy and commercialised.
But it wasn't.
It seems to me that Halloween was not just about witches and ghouls, but also about autumn and harvests, and pumpkins, masses and masses of pumpkins.  And  instead of it being a few hours  with the local school kids on the rampage bombarding the poor residents of the same streets again, it was more a generic celebration with a slow build, like Christmas.  And classy.  Houses had pumpkins artfully displayed on door steps, there were Halloween displays, but tasteful and thought out.  I loved the feel of it.  I'm not sure if I'm making sense here but my stereotypical image of Halloween in the USA was completely shattered.  And yes, there are trick or treaters, and Halloween parties, and sure there is tack like there is anywhere, but there seemed to be an undercurrent of harvest and genuine celebration.

One night while in North Carolina, while our husbands were at the Nascar races (yes, that's the kind of wives we are) my friend Kristin took our 6 tired and fighting kids on a hilarious trip out to the countryside to a pumpkin farm called Aw Shucks (yes really).  There were big ol hay bales, tractor rides, a corn maze, and pumpkins of all sizes.  I could talk about how on the way to the farm my eldest spilled his 2 litre soda on the floor of the nicest dang fast food place you'd ever see,  or how my youngest screamed the place down after biting his tongue after jumping from a very, very high ledge (and it took Kristin's 13 year old to save the day as we were freaking out at the noise and the blood), or how we heard someone call out for her daughter "Kay-lee, come to momma, Kay-lee? (insert very very strong southern accent)...but really, it was a gorgeous farm in the gorgeous countryside with people having a really pleasant evening buying their pumpkins for Halloween.

Just moments before the ill-fated leap and tongue chomp

It just felt nice.
And so this year, yes my kids will drag out the same costumes and charge down the same streets to see who can get the most treats, but I haven't forgotten my experiences of how Halloween can be done.  And I'm bringing a lil bit of North Carolina back to my street.

Big mistake, huge.

Dear Retail People,
Just thought I'd drop you a quick note for completely ignoring me in your shops today.
Just because you're such a "fabulous" shopping location does not mean that you have only one type of customer.  Remember there are other stores nearby, and there maybe people shopping there for other kind of stuff who also shop at your fabulous shops.  Who actually like to wear nice clothes when they're not wearing trainers and trackies.

Also just a tip, if you see someone popping in to your store wearing jeans, thongs, a birds nest of a hair do and a bright pink t-shirt (because she's rocking colour this week), just a thought, she may not have planned to do any shopping in your fabulous shops, but decided while she was the area by chance, to poke her head in anyway.
You never know where your next deal will come from.  It may have been her.  But you'll never know now because you IGNORED her so rudely and completely as you chatted on the phone or to more fabulous people than her (who may not have been going to buy anything).

Sometimes, it's important to remember that some people don't take rude treatment lying down, and that that woman with the birds nest hair and look-at-me pink t-shirt actually likes to vent about this stuff, and got another retail person in BIG BIG trouble when she told about a million people once who read a newspaper where she had written about the rude treatment she got.  Just a thought.

Sometimes people don't need much, just a simple "hi can I help" and that's it. And that's only 4 words.  Easy.
And to the retail person who in a nano-second looked me up and down, formed a judgement and then blatantly ignored me, I had credit cards in my wallet even if it wasn't Prada.  But those cards are capable of buying Prada (ok, that's a lie and if The Husband is reading this, it's only for effect).

Yours truly,

The Woman in jeans, pink tshirt and birds nest hair.

ps. To the Retail Person in the shop where I looked at the thin, cotton navy asymmetrical jumper with a $495 price tag, it was ok that you ignored me, I was cool with that.