Monday Meanderings - 10.31.2016

And a scary, candy-laden Halloween to you.

Okay, I'll go ahead and admit it. Barb and I are going to bunker in this evening, hiding in the dark, not answering any trick-or-treaters that might mistake our dark and shuttered house as a source of treats. It's not our kind of holiday.

I'll share my favorite trick-or-treat story before I go draw the drapes and turn off the lights.

Years ago, a young woman who worked in my department told about receiving a trick-or-treater one year. She lived in the very back of a very large apartment complex - so far back that no ghoulish visitors had ever ventured that far back, so she quit stocking treats that went unclaimed. So it was surprising when the door-bell rang about 9 one Halloween evening.

Checking the door, she found a teen-age boy with a goody sack, waiting for a treat. She opened the door to him and said, "Aren't you a little old for this? Besides, you don't even have a costume."

The boy answered that he was "Rudolph, the red nosed reindeer."

"No, you're not. You don't have on a costume of any kind."

Whereupon the young man took out a small pen-light, turned it on and thrust it into his nostril, where it shone through brightly.

"Wait right here. I'll go find something for you."