Halloween Makes a Home

It's only 7:30 of my first Halloween in my new house and I’m out of candy. A neighbor had given me the estimate of 100 kids from previous years and I find it hard to believe that I actually saw that many princess, Spider-Men, ghosts, Power Rangers and etcetera in only 90 minutes. But, if the empty bowl in the living room is any indication, I clearly did.

Of course, I did make the beginner’s mistake at the start of my evening. Rather than handing out the candy and placing one sucker in each treat-seekers sack, bucket or other vessel, I was allowing the first couple of kids to grab their own candy. And grab they did. Perhaps because I had two types of sucker (Tootsie Pops and Blow Pops) as well as an assortment of flavors the children assumed they were being treated to a buffet of sugary goodness. Or, perhaps, their parental units did not instill within them the philosophy of take only one unless otherwise offered — and then the truly polite thing would be to decline the second helping.

The evening overall, I believe, was a success for the monsters, athletes and myself. They got their candy. I got to take part in the natural evolutionlary step of the holiday. The cat got to hide in the basement (as is her habit whenever anything out of the ordinary occurs around here). The rabbit — well, she didn't really seem to care one way or another about all the activity on the front porch. But I like to think that a good time was had by all.