I Want Candy

Only two more days until Halloween C reminded me yesterday. As if I'd forgotten. He'd like to know why there's school on Halloween since it's a holiday. Surely in a country where we get free tacos for stolen bases, and kids get to miss school because some Italian merchant with a few ships accidentally "found" the new world and mistakenly proclaimed the natives "Indians," we ought to get a day off to gorge ourselves with candy. It almost seems unamerican that we don't.
Someone asked me if I was the kind of mom who passed out toothbrushes for Halloween. No, I'm not quite that bad. This year I got individual bags of goldfish crackers instead. C, picked them out, they're the ones in all the different colors - how all-natural looking. It's not that I don't like candy, it's just that the kids get enough of it without our house adding to the pile. Take my neighbors for example. We live on a dead end, dirt road, with perhaps 35 houses, half of them empty this time of year. On the whole street my two kids and one other little boy make up the only trick or treaters likely to come calling. That's three kids. So if it were me, I would buy three candy bars, maybe four to err on the side of caution. But at every house we go to there's a big bowl of candy - a big bowl. When we get to the house (we usually team up with Matthew and all go out together), it's always the same, the homeowner will say something to the effect of "well, looks like you boys are the only trick or treaters we're going to get (it's all of 6:15), why don't you go ahead and take more than one piece." In this way, even though we only trick or treat to a dozen houses (maybe less), including our own, where three bags of goldfish sit in a relatively tiny bowl, the kids still come home with enough candy to choke a dentist.

song: I Want Candy • artist: Bow Wow Wow