Candy-licious

I love this time of year. The warm, breezy weather. The electric sunsets that splatter oranges, pinks, and purples across the sky. The changing leaves and pumpkin patches. And, to top it off, the arrival of Halloween. Yes, guilty as charged. I love Halloween. It is one of my favorite holidays. I could do without the scary stuff, but the costumes, I like.

Honk, for the life of him, cannot understand why. He's almost hostile about it, attacking me in angry whispers so a jilted Christmas won't overhear. "Halloween? Seriously? What's wrong with you?" The only reason he even puts up with "this nonsense" every year is because he knows there's a truck load of Smarties waiting for him when it's all over.

It's definitely not about the candy for me. I realize admitting this is grounds for stoning in America, but I really don't like candy. I mean, SURE, if I'm at your house and you put a bowl of M&M's out in front of me, I'm going to eat them. But, trust me, I'm not enjoying myself. I am merely showing respect to you, my host, who has graciously offered me food. But you are not surprised by this because we are friends. You already know the depths of sacrifice and suffering I will endure on your behalf. That being said, I do believe that under certain conditions I could be more motivated to do the trick-or-treating thing. If neighbors started passing out homemade brownies, cookies, or slices of chocolate cake instead of candy, I'd be knocking on their doors at sunrise, dressed as a singing and dancing purple dinosaur.

Lil' Miss, on the other hand, is very tolerant of the candy tradition. I'm not sure why. The kids rarely get any candy from me, so I'm guessing it's from all of you, our so-called "friends and family" who sneak them Three Musketeers and Jelly Beans when my back is turned.

Last year on Halloween, we took them out trick-or-treating in the neighborhood for the first time. In just under an hour, our fluttering, pink ballerina collected enough sweets to rot the teeth of every child in a four mile radius. After we had finished, we headed home, practically dragging Lil' Miss's five-ton candy basket along the sidewalk. She never took her gumball-sized eyes off of that bag the whole way.

When we finally walked in the door, we sat Lil' Miss down and set the terms of a candy deal. "You can have two pieces of candy tonight. JUST TWO!" She did not whine or protest at all. She chose her two pieces and happily ate them with a contented smile on her face. At the time, I marvelled at what an obedient and respectful child we had. In hindsight, the "look-how-good-and-easygoing-I-am?" routine was obviously just a ploy to win our trust and ultimately distract us.

Honk and I had just put Baby Dude to sleep when we both noticed things were unusually quiet at the other end of the house. We quickly headed back to the kitchen, but Lil' Miss was nowhere in sight. We checked her room. We searched the living room, bathrooms, and other bedrooms. There was no response when we called out her name. We were starting to panic and began rechecking all of the rooms of the house again. That's when I noticed them, a scattering of candy wrappers on the carpet in the living room. Then the tip of a size 6 ballet slipper from under the end table. "Lil' Miss? Come on out of there right now!" Ever so slowly, she crept out from under the table, toting a much lighter candy basket. Her face told us the whole story. Chocolate was smeared across her lips and cheeks and her wide eyes looked more greedy than guilty.

"Lil' Miss, what are you DOING? We told you two pieces. TWO PIECES! Look at all this! You disobedyed us. Is there something you would like to say to us about the candy?"

"I like it."