2001-10-31 - 11:30 p.m.

No Tricks, No Treats

Well, today is Halloween.

I vaguely remember reading that Halloween is now second only to Xmas among favorite holidays. In fact, I bet there are lots of people who like Halloween better - no buying frenzy, no ghastly music played endlessly, and you get to play dress-up and eat lots of candy.

Lily and I just planned to spend the evening at home. I bought a pile of candy for the apartment, and a pile of candy for the store.

I debated buying a few Halloween decorations, like a cardboard skeleton or a cardboard witch, to tape to the outside door, letting the rest of the world know that yes indeed, someone does live here. The reason why this is an important point is that last year we only got a very few trick-or-treaters, mainly, I think, because our front door is around the back of the building.

Finally, I decided not to bother with the decorations.

I bought the Halloween candy at 1 p.m. on Oct. 31. How's that for planning ahead!

There were very few ghouls and goblins who visited the store today. Maybe it's the aftermath of Sept. 11, or maybe it was the fact that it was cold, wet and miserable outside. Hooray! That means more candy for us.

Lily and I settled in for the evening at the Hamster palace. Very shortly thereafter the doorbell rang, but by the time I hurried downstairs with my bag of candy, the people were gone.

Sad to say, I didn't want to traipse up and down the stairs all night - I had work to do and didn't want to be constantly interrupted. Lily was studying for an exam, and she was even less enthused about being the Candy Fairy. So, I turned off the porch light, and that seemed to discourage the trick-or-treaters. Nobody else rang the doorbell all night. I noticed that the other downstairs tenant was doing the same thing. His apartment lights were on, but his door was dark.

So basically Lily and I spent an anti-social evening at home, with our horde of candy. Does this make us evil? Well, it's certainly the night for it.