Halloween


Wherein Our Heroine Relates a Couple of Bits that are Only Marginally Thematically Connected.
Item one: Pat and Maria are in. The new house looks great, nobody threw their back out moving the sleeper sofa, all is well. During a quick post-move grocery run, where we purchased a feast and stocked up on candy for the little ones in their new neighborhood, Maria and I noted a gentleman who plonked a bag of single-serving-size packets of pretzels onto the belt, placing a box of All Bran in front of it. Obviously, his is the house to be avoided in that neighborhood if you are under fifteen years old. Maria, whose father is a retired dentist, had a bit of a flashback to our childhood where he handed out potato chips instead of Snickers. Oh, the humanity!

Item two: Three Halloweens ago (our first in this house), John and I committed the cardinal Halloween sin. We ran out of candy. So that year we were compelled to turn off the front porch light and huddle in the den at the back of our house, hoping the neighborhood kids would get the hint. To our shame, the motion-sensor light betrayed us and we froze like hunted rabbits through an endlessly ringing doorbell. Last year I had to be gone for trick or treating, but the candy situation was well in hand when I returned - a few random Reese's Peanut Butter Cups remained, so all was well.

A message to all the rugrats in our neighborhood. Where the heck were you last night? Our doorbell rang approximately eight times. John, traumatized by our first Halloween experience, had bought five bags of candy. Our big wooden salad bowl still overflows with mass-produced sucrose bombs. We sat there, dog securely leashed, drinking white wine and watching Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars in mostly-undisturbed splendor. The TiVo's pause button barely got a workout. Not only that, but the mass of Halloweeny cuteness that usually greets us? Not so much. We had two Disney princesses, a few assorted small goblins, and the rest were marginally costumed young teenagers of the variety that John likes to call "punkass kids."

It's like being robbed in reverse. Here I am, left with all this candy. I might as well have bought pretzels.
Posted: Monday - November 01, 2004 at 07:55 AM         | |

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