Happy Hallowe'en!

Trick-or-Treating is done a little differently around here than it was where I grew up. In the suburbs of Philadelphia, you went out in your costume on the 31st of October, always. And you stayed out until you'd either run out of doors to knock on, or you were tired, or your parents called you home. The 30th of October was called "Mischief Night," and people would get up the next morning to find their car windows soaped up (or maybe even egged, though that didn't happen often in my neighborhood), or the tree in the front yard festooned in toilet paper, or maybe the mailbox covered in silly string.

Around here, the night of Trick-or-Treating gets decided at the township level. A lot of the surrounding areas had theirs last night, from 6pm until 8pm. Tonight was my borough's night, again from 6 to 8.

The apartment where I used to live was in an area that was kind of dark and creepy at night. In all the time I lived there, I never had one little kid on my doorstep asking for candy. I bought something every year, just in case. Towards the end there, they were kind of lame treats -- sugarless gum, granola bars, bags of microwaveable popcorn. Well, if I wasn't going to have anyone show up, it should be stuff I don't mind having around the place, right?

There are a lot of children on this side of town, so I just assumed I'd have Trick-or-Treaters this year. I had no idea how many to expect. From the Tweets I was reading last night, some of the folks nearby went through 8 bags of candy before they were done. Yikes! I'd only bought one big bag, a mix of Starbursts and Skittles. On the way home from work today, I stopped and picked up a couple of bags of Tootsie Pops, just in case.

It's quarter to nine now. Wanna see what my candy bowl looks like? Here ya go:



I think I may have overestimated just a tad. I had ten kids, total. Still, that's ten more than I had last year. Guess whose co-workers are going to have sugar highs come Monday?