In the Spirit of the Season

There exist two houses, very near mine, that will decorate for each holiday. The windows are currently decked out with jack-o-lanterns, witches on broomsticks, skeletons and black cats. One even has black bats attached to the house somehow. I know that both houses are owned by two positively ancient women. I pass them each day on my way to work and see them puttering around their gardens because apparently in Ireland, you garden when you pass 60. None of the other houses are nearly as lovingly tended to, leading me to believe they are well below the gardening age limit.

I'm excited for halloween this year because I think we'll actually get trick-or-treaters. It's a very neighborly neighborhood and there are children that reside in and near. I'm not confident enough to don a costume, however, unless it's my standard "I'm a Canadian" costume, which is mostly just a good imitation of the accent. I don't think that'll fly here though. You hear one American accent, you've heard them all. Even if it's Canadian. Fair enough. So I'll go and buy some candy to have on hand and wait for the doorbell to ring. I have no idea what they say here, but I know it isn't trick or treat. That's too American. (said in a very derogatory way yet sipping on Diet Coke and wearing Levis) I think they just shake you down for candy, which is a lot more honest if you think about it. Trick or Treat isn't an option. You choose Treat, you get crying children. No one wants that. Especially if they have face paint. "Oh look Paddy, she's the Melting Wicked Witch of the West, how clever!" Besides, that gets you a reputation quickly as the cheap bastard, the mean guy, the spinster (no, wait...) anyway, then you find yourself contending with Trick all year long. In my day, they were called pranks and involved wrapping a house toilet paper, spraying it with water from the garden hose and letting the sub-zero weather do it's worst. But it doesn't freeze here; it rains, which would mean toilet paper clumps all over the front garden. Yuck. I think that's how composting was invented. "Just rake the leaves over it; we'll deal with it in the spring".

I will pass out candy. I will not eat the candy. I will not eat the left over candy. I will pile the leftover candy on German Co-workers desk in retaliation for all the times she surreptitiously moves the cookies to our side of the office so she won't eat them. She's not tempted because she works in another room, so the Lovely Clare and I end up grazing on them throughout the day. When she came back from vacation two weeks ago, she walked in to our room, tossed a box of candy on the table and then walked back to her desk without a word. There was something very resigned about the thump it made. Sort of like that moment in Clue when they open the door, find the dead singing telegram girl, sigh and then shut the door without a word. (ooo, I should rent that and have the Fab Four come over!)

So, in the spirit of pranks, I'll take all the left over candy (what has happened to my moral code?) and do what to it? Glue it to a piece of paper so she has to lift the entire thing? Oh! I'll go in early and stash little mini-bites in and around her desk so she'll find them one by one! And not know who did it to her. Plus she won't be able to bring the whole lot into our room. Hee-hee...