It’s nights like last night that leave me happy I’m not embroiled in the heat of an election to public office. Not that it wouldn’t provide some degree of entertainment: It might be fun to see the skeletons marched out of my closet. I’m sure there are a few although probably more ghosts than skeletons.
I don’t know if I really could have survived the media assault which would have followed last night’s behavior when, at 5:30PM, as the doorbell rang for the second time, we realized we were trapped like rats, caught empty-handed for trick-or-treaters. Last night was the 30th.
In this small town in mid-Michigan, members of our city council deemed it wise to move Trick-or-Treating to Saturday the 30th instead of today, Sunday the 31st. Tonight is Halloween and we are enjoying a quiet evening at home—no little voices, no footsteps, no doorbells. I think the un-official reason was, although a couple of official versions were offered, I really think the reason was God. I guess, given the proper mix of current council members facing Halloween occurring on a Sunday for the first time in their tenure, they must have held a WWJD meeting and came up with this idea.
And so, there we were, empty-handed on Saturday, the 30th of October. Facing the prospect of having to quickly turn out the lights and lie on the floor or get out of Dodge, we opted for both. We turned out the lights, did the commando crawl to the garage, loaded into the truck, and went out for dinner.
I’m certain, however, if I were a political candidate there would have been media staking out the place to see if I participated in the distribution of treats. They’d want to see my face painted up in some appropriately un-scary but clever makeup. People would want to know: Snickers or Dum-Dums? And God help me if they’d seen me slip out on the sly: “Candidate Spurns Local Children in Act of Self-Indulgence.” Hardly a model for community service! And the negative ads!
It turns out we were the only community within 20 miles that observed Halloween on the 30th. Good thing we ran as every family within those 20 miles loaded up the kids and brought them to our town. Hell yes! It was a two-fer Halloween in mid-Michigan! The people who stood firm and gave out candy got slaughtered by the shear numbers of little buggers and their parents; all of whom would be back at it the next night on their home turf. By morning, most members of this community were ready to ask the architect of this plan to stand up and take a bow so they could give him a good swift kick in the butt!
As it is, I’m not a candidate and there was nothing to deal with other than my own slightly guilty conscience. We went out for Italian, and the place was packed.
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