Trick or Treat

They warned me that Halloween in Kensington (our neighborhood) was a popular affair. That they "bus the kids in" to take advantage of.....the absence of candy corn? Nonetheless, I thought the neighbors were crazy when we showed up at their house on Saturday night and found 6 Costco-sized bags of candy on hand. At first, we were worried kids were skipping the house, so somebody put tea lights at the end of the driveway and made a virtual runway for trick-or-treat landings.  I thought the combination of open flame and flammable kid costumes was a bad idea, but it sure pulled the kiddies in.

At any point in time between dusk and lights-out at 8:15 (a/k/a the "make it stop" point), there was a line of trick-or-treaters that was 20 kids deep (!) You would have thought we were handing out flu shots. There were so many kids that our little dinner party initially took shifts on the porch handing out candy. Rita was relieved of her candy-dispensing duties when she demanded to hear "trick or treat" before parting with the Milky Ways. [I was relieved of my candy-dispensing duties when I spilled beer in Spider Man's jack-o-lantern candy bucket. He's going to have a tough time explaining THAT one to his parents.]

Then our buddy Joe showed up in his grim reaper costume and became the permanent candy-giving ambassador for the house [costume = duty]. Things only got busier as the grim reaper kept shouting "I have cahn-dy" (apparently the grim reaper has the hint of a Boston accent, who knew). Anytime there was more than about six seconds of conversation at the front of the line, though, some kid in the back would yell "Hey mister - hurry up!" It all had the eerie feel of the department store Santa scene from "A Christmas Story".

But I can proudly report that Molly didn't bark once [except at the kid dressed like a mailman].

The next morning, it looked like the neighborhood had hosted an all night rave sponsored by M&M Mars.