It's Halloween. And it's 4:43pm. I'm sure the little witches and pumpkins and pirates that I hear screaming in the neighbor's backyard were banished there after asking too many times "can we go trick-or-treating now?" At my house, there are no carved pumpkins on the porch. No ghosts hanging from Lindon trees. No willowy witch broom or "I'll Get You My Pretty" pillow out there to greet the little devils. Nope. Not this year. And the inside matches the outside. No black cats. No scary Fitz and Floyd candle holders with black drippy candles. No witchy wall hanging. No candy corns in a witch bowl. Nothing.
Lest you think I have actually turned into a mean old witch depriving innocent little children of one of the most anticipated joys of the year, think again. It really started when Sydney went to college and left Joel and I alone in this big house. She's the mean one. At the end of September it occurred to me that pulling the boxes and boxes of Halloween do-dads out of their slumber would not be fun without her. So I left them to wait for another year. Then it occurred to me that most of the little trick-or-treating children we had last year, were not really that little. (I kind-of think 16 is the cut-off age.) Then I counted 5 houses on our street with kids young enough to trick-or-treat. I did the math and figured that it would be much easier for me to take a nice, leisurely stroll in the beautiful autumn afternoon to 5 houses than it would to get up off the couch and answer the door 50 times tonight. I opted for the 5 houses.
Filling a bag with 10 large, (and I mean LARGE enough to compete with the Joneses), candy bars, I set off. The neighbor children were thrilled! In fact, one just politely called to say "Thank You!" Who would have thought? Reverse trick-or-treating.
Joel and I are going out to dinner. At the pizza place down the way. Where the local teens hang out. Except they are all out trick-or-treating.
The real spookiness is that we are empty-nesters.
