The Crown Prince came down for Halloween and to spend the night. Mr. Lucky had to work, so I spent the evening running interference between the trick-or-treaters, the Crown Prince, Baby Bear, and the barking beagles.
Halloween chez Lingefelt is like the final reel of the 2005 version of King Kong. Oh hell, let’s change that to every day of the year and the final two-thirds of the movie.
The chain reaction goes something like this: Doorbell rings. Dogs bark. Baby Bear doesn’t like it when the dogs bark too long, and protests by screaming and hitting himself. This, in turn, agitates the Crown Prince. Trick-or-treaters think they have stumbled upon a real life house of horrors, and they run for their frightened little lives. Meanwhile, Karen stands in a daze amid the chaos and wreckage, staring blankly like Jack Black as Carl Denham after Kong makes his escape out of the New York theater.
Only the National Guard, some biplanes and a beautiful blonde can restore order to the beast that is my household. As luck would have it, I’m a brunette.
We decided to keep the dogs crated the whole time, though it didn’t stop them from barking.
The Crown Prince loves to hand out the treats. I insisted on stockpiling, much to Mr. Lucky’s grumbling annoyance, and started feeling alarmed when it was almost seven o’clock and so far only one little trick-or-treater had showed up. I was not looking forward to another one of my husband’s “you and your fear of running out of (you fill in the blank)” lectures that cover anything from gas in the car to milk for the kids, but never housecleaning products. Gazing in dismay at the bags and bags of candy, I started sorting through them, checking for expiration dates to determine which ones might be put aside for next year.
If you read the previous blog entry, you’ll see there can be no happy medium with me. My wit’s end swings from one extreme to the other.
By seven-thirty, things started picking up and I was feverishly ripping open one candy bag after another to keep up with the demand, as the Crown Prince handed out giant fistfuls to everyone who showed up.
We saw princesses and fairies and superheroes, but my award for most memorable costume of the night had to go to someone’s very buxom mother who was dressed as either (a) a pair of county fair “best in show” watermelons, (b) Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl Wardrobe Malfunction, or (c) Elaine Benes’s Christmas card. No, it wasn’t really showing, though for all that upper spillage, I swear she was just an eighth of a millimeter away from corrupting the children. The Crown Prince and I are both tall people who towered over her, so you might say we were--ahem--"treated" to a better view than most. Because she was so much shorter, it was a struggle to look as if I was making eye contact with her instead of—well, I’m just thankful my son’s hands didn’t follow his eyes and plunge a fistful of sweets down her cleavage.
Things went quiet at about eight-thirty, and stayed that way thereafter. At nine o’clock, we unplugged the jack o’ lantern, turned off the exterior lights, and released the dogs.
When Mr. Lucky came home from work, his first words were, “Is there any candy left?” When I told him two bags plus what was left in the bowl, he said, “Good!”
He never says that about the Thanksgiving turkey.
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