The Scariest Part of Halloween

The face was freakish. With mouth wide open, tongue extended outward, and eyeballs bulging, it emitted a piercing shriek. In a frightening display of Halloween horror, it went from red to maroon to purple as the noise kept coming. No mask I had seen on the street just an hour or two before could compare. And it was the expression our son wore in response to being ushered into the bath.

Yes, Halloween with small children is fun, but the aftereffects of all those Milky Ways ("milkshakes," our little guy called them), Smarties, and Tootsie Rolls is sheer terror. By the end of the night, these normally sweet children behaved as though they were simultaneously on speed and possessed by Satan.

But the trick-or-treating started out just swell. Little sis, dressed as an inchworm, held her shopping-bag-style goodie sack out in front of her with both hands throughout our entire route, and Big Brother Checkerboard ran maniacally from house to house, too shy to say "trick or treat" without back-up (that is, me). While the inchworm was literally crawling along the sidewalk as she neared home, the black-and-red sensation could have gone all night. (Given that we have about three pounds of candy in our house as is, it's a really good thing he didn't.)

I was a bit relieved when my shift as trick-or-treat escort ended and Daddy's began. In a two-year-old Halloween tradition, I carried my bowl of candy over to the next-door neighbor's house, where we sat on the porch and waited for princesses, Harry Potters, and even a high-school-aged Socrates. The tradition expanded in this year's incarnation to include glasses of wine--treats for the adults. Factoring that in, I'd say a good--if slightly scary--time was had by all.