Today is Halloween.
Last night was Mischief Night.
When I was a kid I used to indulge in Mischief Night.
I’d heard about this night from my Grandfather and one Halloween night shortly after my best friend and I busted out of our First Grade class, snuck into the coat room and threw the jackets by the arm full down from the top stairs into the stairwell.
For good measure we slid down the stairs, head first on our bellies on the jackets down the wooden stairs.
Where me and my best friend celebrated Mischief Night for the first time.
I got a black eye and my friend cut her lip in the process.
I remember when we got to the bottom of the stairs and looked up and saw those coats and I felt my eye starting to swell shut and Linda stuck a wad of gum on her lip to stop the bleeding – actually I was chewing the gum and figured it would work like a bandaid and she agreed- I remember it actually worked.
I also remember how absolutely wicked I felt.
In case you’re curious we got away with it- with the stories we must have told about the cut lip and black eye.
Me and my friend actually got caught strolling back into the class and our teacher was upset. Where did we come from? Why weren’t we at our desks?
We were looking at the coats we said.
” What coats?” our teacher asked.
We pointed at the door and she walked out the classroomand looked down the stairs.
My friend pulled the gum off of her lip and handed it back to me. I stuck it on the wall under the pencil sharpener, which is where I always stuck my gum.
We took our seats and sat there, with our hands folded and waited for the bell to ring for lunch.
Like I said.
We never got called on that bit of Mischief or for the many, many Mischief Night adventures that would follow in the years to come.
I say ‘called on it’ because we were caught oh so many very times. For some reason we always got out of it.
It’s like for one night we had the Luck of The Devil.
Photo A.M. Moscoso
Read a brief bit of history of Mischief Night at Smithsonian.com
