“He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man”
Dr. Johnson

October 31st, 6pm…
We were somewhere around Lodi, on the edge of a cornfield, when the candy began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit light headed, maybe you should walk….” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like giant bats, all swooping and screeching and diving us, and a voice was screaming: “Holy Jesus! What are these (Daddy-Word Omitted) animals?”
Lydia to Regina: “What are you yelling about?”
“Never mind, it’s your turn to walk us to that house.” No point in mentioning those giant bats, I thought. My poor sister’ll see them soon enough. We had two bags of M&Ms, seventy-five tootsie rolls, five sheets of sugar dots, a small box half-full of Nerds, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored skittles, Milky Ways, Kit Kats, Snickers… and also a quart of Blow Pops, a quart of Tootsie Pops, a case of Laffy Taffy, a pint of Pop Rocks and two dozen Starbursts. Not that we needed all this for the trip, but once you get locked in a serious candy collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. The only thing that worried me were the pop rocks. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a child in the depths of a pop rocks binge. And I knew we’d get into that rotten stuff pretty soon.

It was a chilly Halloween this year, Lyd came close to getting the crushing news that she might have to wear a winter jacket over her beautiful Dia des los Muertos Dress.
We figured out a way to bundle her and all was right in the world.
Regina, our little Fairy Princess, was figuring out new and creative ways to sneak and slip candy every chance she had. She has a sweet tooth that rivals mine.

After we worked our usual neighborhood, the cold began getting to us. Time to pack it up, but not before giving my folks a visit.
My parents live on an out-of-way street that many children, myself included, once called Home. Those children, like me, have grown up, moved out and had children of their own.
Long story short – for the better part of a decade, my Mom has been buying an entire bowl’s worth of candy to give out, and she gets two, maybe five trick or treaters. She gets a little sad, a little nostalgic about it all.
We decided to give her a visit before retiring for the night.
She was delighted.
However, my daughters were beginning to have conversations that were frenzied and accented with high pitched barking. They were deep in the sugar…and they just entered Grandma’s House.
I knew this was becoming a problem when Lydia’s laughter became hysterical, she began shadow boxing, and she was developing a “Come at me Bro!” kind of attitude.
Meanwhile my Dad witnessed Regina slowly, and with rapt drama pop a skittle in her mouth, only to clench her fists and vibrate—yes, she literally vibrated.
Yep! Time to pack it in!
G’night Mom! G’night Dad! Love Ya!
Home. Brush your teeth, girls. For the Love of God, seriously brush those teeth. Yes I can see how fast you can move…very impressive. It’s bedtime now.
They crashed. They crashed hard.

The older I get, the more aware I am becoming that hangovers are not a booze-exclusive thing. Anything in excess, will give you its own version of a hangover.

6am, November 1st
The lights turned on, Annie and I poured into the girl’s bedroom with our singsong voices, “Good morning Daughters!!!!” Lydia was out cold. A spot of drool in the corner of her mouth. Regina was slow and groggy with incredible bedhead. What had transpired the night before had not even hit her yet. She blearily regarded her surroundings. Her thoughts raced in slow motion:

What kind of rat-(Daddy Word Omitted) psychotic would say those things right now, at this moment?
When I came to…the general back-alley ambience of our bedroom was so rotten…so incredibly foul.
How long had I been lying there?
All these signs of violence.
What had happened?
There was evidence in this room of excessive consumption…of almost every type of candy known to civilized man since 1544 A.D.
What kind of child would need all these candy wrappers and crushed jawbreakers?
Would the presence of children account for all these uneaten candy corns?
These puddles of glazed chocolate syrup on the bureau?
Maybe so…
but then why all this Kool-Aid…and these crude crayon drawings smeared with Taffy that had dried to the consistency of granite?
These were not the hoof prints of your normal God-fearing trick-or-treater.
It was too savage,
too aggressive.

November first is as terrible as Halloween is delightful. It’s National Sugar-Withdrawal day!
All things have their hangovers.
My daughters were miserable little creatures to live with that day.
It was worth it, and they would agree.