Halloween is "skeery" and evil.

Last year's Halloween was unmemorable, except for a little boy half-dressed in a Piglet costume sliding around on the hardwood floors in little padded pigletfeet. This year, though, he knew what he was into, I think.

Dressed as Mr. Bones, Noah struck out to "git canny." And get candy he did. Our entire block did their darndest to send us home with more candy that we had to give out, I think, and he wasn't done yet -- we headed off to the next street, and he gamely walked up to a strange door... And then the severed head in the bowl spoke to him. It wasn't just "dross," it became "skeery."

Back home, he poured his earnings onto the floor like a tiny miser and in a moment when no one was watching, he picked the ONE THING that he could unwrap himself and ate it, and that was it. "CANNY!" Oh, the screaming when we explained that he couldn't eat all of it right then, and indeed we did want him to eat dinner. Oh, the wailing when we emptied the plastic pumpkin and gave him back two or three pieces that he could at, and then evil Mommy wouldn't let him refill the pumpkin from the bowl she was using to give candy to other kids we DIDN'T EVEN KNOW who came to the door! Oh the gnashing of teeth each time someone came to the door and more candy left!

After a short stint of screaming it out alone in his bedroom, a huffing little boy came back downstairs to join us, and there was no more discussion of candy -- he ate a little dinner, watched JUNGLE BOOK with me while I caught up with missed work from earlier in the day, and trundled upstairs to crawl into bed.

But it's clear to me now -- chocolate is the work of the devil.