Foolishly I’d envisioned an idyllic Halloween evening. I imagined myself sitting alone, on the front porch with my laptop, handing out candy to the occasional costumed kiddo…while the little man went trick or treating with the neighbors. Suckers. Naturally I got more than I bargained for. After three early evening costume changes (around 4pm) the lad announced he wouldn’t be going out. So much for his inaugral trick or treating trip. He had been so excited to go, even if he couldn’t get the semantics quite right. First he thought it was “Pick a Treat” and then he changed it to “Take a Treat” after I tried explaining it to him. But when he discovered I wouldn’t be joining him it was all over. Someone has to stay home to distribute treats, and that someone is always me (with the husband incurably shy, and trying to get some sleep in before his two night shifts). The little man was upset. And then upset over being upset. Eventually he calmed down…only to get extremely excited about handing out candy. And thus it was, over two hours of sitting out on the cold front steps, with the smell of smouldering pumpkin flesh, and an overly enthusiastic little man, racing around on a sugar high. We ate too much of the candy we were supposed to be distributing until I was sick with it. The boy wasn’t sick at all though. He was running in circles around the trees, screeching Happy Halloween at passerby so loudly he frightened many of them off. And the shrieking! It was happy shrieking, but he sounded not unlike one of the Nazgul. He didn’t scare everyone off, though. We still had about fifty trick or treaters, all told, even with the same group of four teenagers returning three times over two hours.
