The recap: Part I.

Was a little too tied up yesterday to give my Halloween recap, but here it is today:

1) Overbought Again: When we bought our house and left the city more than a decade ago, we got a rude surprise---trick or treaters. Back in the confines of NYC we would get hardly any kids, nothing that a couple of bags of fun size stuff couldn't handle. Up here in the Hudson Valley it was a different story. I left work early and got home to find the neighborhood crawling with costumed schnorrers. I was cleaned out in seconds. My wife got home and I yelled, "Go to the store! Buy more candy!"

I have never forgotten the terror of running out of the varmint-appeasing chocolates, and since then I have always stocked enough candy to have gotten all of Napoleon's army home safe from Russia. The problem is, it seems that all the kids in the area grew up. Like everyone moved into the area and had babies at the same time, and now those babies aged out of the trick-or-treat demo, dwindling every year.

I think the doorbell rang seven times yesterday, and maybe we got 21 children. They all made out well, especially the latecomers. But any year could be the big one. Halloween is not like other holidays, where you pretty much know how many people are coming over. I have been overbuying for some time, and will probably do it again next year.

2) Best Costume: It was a tough call between the little girl in the pink unicorn suit and the baby in the pumpkin outfit in the stroller. I'm giving it to the unicorn. She was shy but she still came up to the door. The baby just sat there. Lazy babies.

3) Biggest Shock: Did not get any surly teenagers with Mom's pillowcases and no costume. We had some teenage girls, but they bothered to dress up, and were polite.

4) Oddest Candy: Had to be the Milky Way Caramel Apple Minis. They really taste like apple, which is all wrong. And yet they taste oh so right. Too good to waste on children, although many were.

5) Dog Disturbance: My dog, who sleeps through thunderstorms and fireworks and fireworks shot off during thunderstorms, cannot rest while strangers are thumping around the front door, ringing and knocking, and him not permitted to go slobber on them. Poor guy got no rest at all.

6) Biggest Scare: Had nothing to do with Halloween. Some schmuck tried to steal my identity and use my credit card number. Thank God, the company caught it and stopped the theft, and will issue a new card. The representative that called asked if I had any questions, and I wanted to ask, "If the cops find the guy, do I get to break his jaw?" I mean, really, this gets me bewitched, bothered, and bewildered. Who would want to steal my identity? Has he actually seen me? He'd think twice.

Anyway, that was Halloween, and aside from a random attack by an evildoer I don't have much eeeevil to report. But there will a second recap tomorrow, on another painful subject.