- April 23, 2024
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Don’t be scared by the line of 83 cars lined up along both sides of Parkview Drive for the Boo Bash party Friday, Oct. 28, near Wadsworth Elementary School. Keep driving. About six blocks down, you’ll find a spot on someone’s lawn.
At the pavilion, pay $10 bucks for 20 tickets. Make sure your 5- and 7-year-old sons know that’s all the cash you have.
The first booth is just a store, basically. Let your 7-year-old pay three tickets for a rubber ducky keychain. Let your 5-year-old pay two tickets for a glow stick.
Do the math: You just paid $2.50 in cash for five paper tickets; you traded those five tickets for two trinkets worth about 25 cents each. Try not to think about this too much.
The next booth is a true test of physical skill. Your 5-year-old pays one ticket to be able to pick up a small, plastic skull about the size of a quarter and drop it into a crypt about the size of a garbage disposal.
Repeat several times. Run out of tickets. Walk back to the car.
When you get home, get the kids to brush their teeth and get their pajamas on and say their prayers. Ask them about their day. Ask them their favorite part.
“Going to the Boo Bash,” your 5-year-old will say.
Poor boy, you will think. Doesn’t know, as his wise father does, that he just got ripped off.
Your 5-year-old will then jump out of bed and grab a red plastic box. Inside, he will show you his loot, saved from the Boo Bash and the Halloween party you took him to the night before, too. There’s a plastic skeleton. There’s a rubber skeleton. And a spider ring and an eraser. A parachute man and a green plastic spider.
“These are my treasures,” he will say. He will smile at you and give you a sticker that says “Cool.”
You will watch him close up the box and place it carefully back on his shelf in his room. You will turn off the light and say goodnight. And you will have to be the one to decide whether or not that junk was worth $10 after all.
