Halloween High Jinx

Warning: Women “stuff” and (frankly) a little bit of gross TMI ahead in today’s post. Read it at your own risk...if you dare!

Halloween. Now, there’s a holiday that clearly illustrates the difference between my honey and me.

Normally, I am all geared up for Halloween. I love answering the door and making all those sugary sweet comments on those cute little costumes. I love hearing the gimmicky trick or treat jingle and the hurried, prompted thank-yous. I love the faces filled with joy as they hurry from house to house.

But tonight, thanks to a full day of TOM and its purge of 177 days of torturous waiting, I barely felt like breathing, let alone jumping up to answer the door sporadically for the next three hours.

“It’s okay,” I told my husband on the drive home. “You don’t mind answering the door tonight, do you? I mean, I’ve done it for the past seven years. You could answer the door tonight, right?”

“Babe, I am so sore. They had me doing heavy lifting today at work. I can hear the Jacuzzi calling my name. Let’s just leave the candy in a bowl in the chair outside the front door. The kids won’t mind.”

And here, my friends, begins the negotiation.

I am an only child. My husband is the youngest child. The battle of wills between an only and a youngest can be heated and intense.

That amount of conflicting stubbornness is almost unequaled anywhere else in the universe.

Because, you see, I WILL mind if someone doesn’t answer the door. I will obsess over what the neighbors will think when they KNOW we are home with ALL the lights ON and would rather do ANYTHING than look at their ADORABLE children.

Because I know what I would be thinking. And it would not be complimentary.

“Honey, it’s just a few kids. Please answer the door. I’ve never asked you to before.”

“Babe, I’m just so sore tonight.” (Subtext: Me, me, me, feel sorry for me, me, me.)

“Darling, I am the one who is having that time right now. You are not the one who could have filled an entire blood bank today, are you? Just a little sore, right? Not lost enough blood to be declared clinically dead, right?” (Subtext: Me, me, PMS, PMS, me, me you are being selfish when it’s really all about me, me, me)

Dead blank stare from my dearest (Subtext: I can outwait you, lady. I don’t CARE what the neighbors think…YOU do. And if it matters to you, YOU do it!)

Dead blank stare back (Subtext: Oh, it’s gonna be a long time before I make you any lasagna (deeper subtext).)

By the time, we got home, I was so physically exhausted, I wouldn’t have cared if an army of angry trick-or-treaters rallied together to toilet paper and egg the house.

I let the hubby put the candy in the dish by the door and tried my darndest NOT TO CARE.

We heard the little kids coming and going. The doorbell rang a few times, we both POINTEDLY ignored it. Eventually, Brett got up to check the “stash” and measure if any progress had been made.

Oh, progress had been made.

The bowl was overturned, and the candy scattered on the cement and over the flowerbeds with several pieces in the dirt.

My husband stood there amazed. “Some kid must have tried to empty the entire bowl into his bag. Or just knocked it over on purpose.”

I tried to smooth his ruffled feathers. “It was probably just a younger kid who accidentally knocked it over.” I smiled.

Brett looked at me through narrowed eyes as he put on his shoes, trekked outside, picked up the candy, brushed it off, and scavenged the best pieces to put back in the bowl.

I could tell he was wavering on whether to put the bowl back on the chair at all. I could almost see the wheels turning in his head. “Those kids! They don’t deserve this candy!”

Eventually, his compassion for the littlest trick-or-treaters won him over as he secured the bowl firmly to the chair and stomped back inside.

I, on the other hand, waited until he was far away to make my point to an empty kitchen. “It wouldn’t have happened if we had just answered the door, you know.”

Later, we talked about (what will be come to be known as) the Great Candy Upset.

“Don’t worry, baby.” I told him. “I’m sure karma will give only the bad kids the candy from the bottom of the flowerbeds.”

And there my friends is the moral of the story. When you’re both selfish, nobody wins.

And kids have to eat dirty candy!

Happy Halloween!