Halloween Epitaph

A few notes after my favorite holiday of the year . . .

We really had a run on kids at our house. Usually we get around 150. I'll bet we had over 200 last night. If the rain hadn't chased them away after one hour, I'm sure we could have passed out over 300 pieces of candy before all was said and done.

My nephew Mike came over again to "scare the kids" (See Mike's Big Scare blog below). I was a bit worried since last year he got a little carried away, chasing some trick-or-treaters with what looked like a bloody knife ("They had it coming."). This year he was more tame, though he insisted that I put him in a chair right next to the porch.

That made for some funny moments. A lot of kids were wary of Mike, who was wearing an ugly monkey's mask, and v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y made a wide arc around him. One woman, to protect her kids, backed right up to Mike, sticking her ample behind in his face so her kids wouldn't have to look at him.

But many kids thought he was fake. This one guy about ten who looked like the grim reaper casually walked right over and touched Mike. Mike flinched and the kid literally doubled over in apparent pain. He looked as if someone had punched him in the belly. "Man, that scared me," he finally said when he composed himself.

Then this kid grabbed hold of his little sister of about six years, picked her up and tried to drag her over to Mike still sitting in his chair. She whined, squirmed and struggled till she was rescued by her parents.

Another little girl stood a healthy distance away, but kept a little patter going: "You're not real. You're fake. I'm not scared of you." So Mike moved a little to show he WAS real. The girl stopped talking for just a second, then started up again. "You're not real. You're fake . . . "

Not all was fun and games this Halloween. I called the police after a Devil's Night prankster kicked some lighted skulls that were part of my decorations, damaging the string of lights. Though I only wanted the police to make a patrol through the neighborhood, the dispatcher insisted on sending over an officer to make a report.

I felt sooooooooo silly trying to explain this to the beat cop. "They just were after the skulls. They left the coffin alone. That seemed odd to me." I'm sure the officer was thinking, "You, who have a coffin, skulls, a disembodied hand, and a makeshift grave should not be talking about 'odd.'"