Mischief night

Even as a kid I never understood why Mischief Night came before Halloween. I kind of thought that the whole point was to go BACK the next night and prank the people who stiffed you while trick or treating. I mean, isn’t that why it’s trick or treat?  Why treat us if we already tricked you the night before?

So what’s the deal with that?

Is it a big thing in your area?  It was when I was a kid. 

Never heard of it.

It’s called devils night in these parts.  It doesn’t make any sense to me either.

Same here.  

You must be in some lawless, untamed territory. 

The night before Halloween, you dress all in black or navy blue, and you run around your neighborhood throwing dried, shelled corn kernels to rattle house windows, soaping up car windshields, TPing trees (I was never a huge fan of that), setting off firecrackers,  little pranks like that. It’s supposed to be pretty harmless but of course in places like Detroit they would take that to mean burn down a block of warehouses or something.

But where I grew up it was just little, non-destructive stuff that would make a mess, but not a permanent one. 

By the way, tonight is Mischief Night. But again, I never understood why it was done indiscriminately the night before instead of going back later to target the houses that didn’t pony up the tribute on Halloween. 

This is a thing?

In the northern, eastern quadrant of the US it is. Or was. 

It didn't make it across the border to Canada, I'll tell you that. Sounds like a bunch of kids giving themselves permission to act like shiny happy people by giving it a name.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Well, uh, yeah. 

Never heard of it in IL, nor down here in MS either. 

Never heard of it. The 'pranks' described where I grew up took place on Halloween. 

That's a thing that doesn't just happen in movies? Weird. 

People would, and still, just go corning whenever they felt like it, but that's about the extent of it, and it's not limited to just tonight. 

It was definitely a thing up here,  but even as a kid, I never liked the idea of Mischief Night. It’s just wrong. Never heard of the corn thing before. Mischief night was when the real troublemakers came out. 

It was a thing when I was growing up in Eastern PA. I think it still happens in the housing developments.

Corning was called 'racking' here. Had an old corn sheller in dad's garage, we'd swipe sack fulls of corn from the fields across the highway, prolly tossed corn at windows for a week. Pretty harmless really.

Soaping windows too, mostly cars. It was a thing.

Older guys stacked garbage can pyramids, I may have participated but wasn't my bag. 

Some berkeleywads got carried away and broke windows, not me.

Older folks told stories of upsetting outhouses back in the day, way before my time tho. 

Most of it had been kid fun w/o breaking E36 M3. Dunno if kids even do that anymore.

In reply to fasted58 :

In reply to your question, unless there's an app for it probably not.

Just checked with DW, and they did it on Long Island when she was a kid. They did it on the night after Halloween, or later on Halloween night. Both of which make sense. 

Probably a good thing I didn't hear about this apparent tradition when I was a teen. I really was a pretty terrible person with very very little respect for property, authority, or the property of authority. I always thought the night before halloween was for parents to stay up finishing costumes for their kids, since that is always what my mom did, and what I just finished.

The0retical said:

It was a thing when I was growing up in Eastern PA. I think it still happens in the housing developments.

Same here, although it was sporadic.  I haven't really seen anything in the last decade.

It still happens in select pockets where I live- like, nothing for a long way and then you encounter an intersection that you can't see the other side of thanks to all the toilet paper on the power lines.

I don't mind it, if nothing gets broken let people have fun.  Halloween has been neutered enough as it is.

The0retical said:

It was a thing when I was growing up in Eastern PA.

What part of eastern PA?  I was in Chester County at Mischief Night age.

Plus, while it seemed perfectly natural at the time (and still does), having to actually write out the words "throwing dried, shelled corn kernels to rattle house windows" in order to explain it makes it seem kind of unexplainable.

because of Mischief night, the town I grew up in had their Halloween a couple of days early. They thought by having it earlier than normal, it would catch the kids unaware. All it did was create TWO halloweens for the kids. On the actual day we would go to the next town over and collect even more candy.

Never heard of it down here in Oklahoma.

Yep.

Devils night

Corning

Smashing pumpkins

Flaming bags of poo....

All the above still happens...