Halloween Fever is on

They are dressed...

and ready...

for one of their favorite...

nights of the year!

The costumes come out every afternoon, the Halloween shirts are worn days on end, the discussion of which streets we will go down has begun. Before long, Cole will publish his map (made weeks ago) of the best houses to trick or treat - I've seen this map, and he's right. Hi, neighbor with full-size candy bars! And in the true manner of a wired kid, Cole has G00gled "how to get the most candy at halloween." He came to me with his results, wearing a furrowed look and shaking his head. Oh G00gle. What idiotic Web-driven masterpiece has he searched up now? (I do have search lock on his computer)

He snorted and said some teenagers were posting mean ways to get candy. Whew. Could've been ugly.

We share stories from last year, of the haunted garage our friends hosted, of the other haunted garage that creeped some kids out so badly, they ran the other way. I'll admit, when Cole asked me to walk up to that garage with him, and I saw the head hanging in the midst of a dry ice fog, a bare table with one small dish of candy, and felt the mood set by the intense music.... ooooh. Shivers!

Music, dry ice and decapitation - these 3 elements rule the spooky world.

Most Bizarre-o? The Indian man. Definitely.

We approached that house, noting that the front door was open, but the opening was covered completely by a plastic sheet with Halloween decorations on it. A small hole was cut out at waist height. As the kids approached, a wrinkled brown hand poked out the hole in the plastic, clutching candy to drop into their bags. A voice from behind the plastic prattled on, and cackled, but we couldn't understand a word.

As you may imagine, this sparked some discussion over the process of people immigrating to the US, and trying to make sense of the massive consumer-fest that is Halloween. He had decorated, albeit unusually, and he had procured candy, wrapped and brand-name. We'll be looking for you again this year, Mr. Pokey-Hand! You sure got the creepy part down!

Here's hoping your little ghouls are also revving up...