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October 31, 2009

Payback Day: The trick after the treats

By STEVE OUELLETTE, You Had to Ask

I'm sure you've all set your clocks back an hour for the end of Daylight Saving Time — which gives you an extra 60 minutes to recover from last night.

No doubt, however, you need more than that.

On Halloween night, you were inundated with slobbering, greedy ghosts, goblins, witches, zombies, ghouls, vampires, princesses, superheroes, hobos, beauty queens, rock stars, aliens, Sarah Palins, Derek Jeters and octuplets. All of them knocking on your door ceaselessly, demanding candy as tribute for their unoriginal and cheaply made costumes. All without an ounce of gratitude.

Your own children dragged you out into the cold. They in their too-expensive costumes that they'll never wear again. You in your hastily put together park ranger outfit that they demanded you wear. They made you carry their weighty buckets full of treats; they pointed at you and giggled from the doorways of the neighbors' houses; they screamed and cried when you tried to eat just one Hershey's Special Dark chocolate bar, you know, to keep up your strength.

If that wasn't bad enough, odds are your home was hit with eggs, or your shrubs and vehicles covered with toilet paper. Maybe your mailbox was smashed by masked vandals; your lovingly carved jack-o'-lanterns heaved into the streets; your family cat kidnapped, brainwashed and taught to piddle on your pillowcases.

Halloween Night indeed belongs to the children "¦ but there is more that we adults can do than just clean up the mess and glumly gorge ourselves with stale, leftover candy corn. Beginning today, and continuing ever after, Nov. 1 will be Payback Day (apologies to All Saints' Day). We will make kids dread even the thought of Halloween.

First, we will take care of our own children. We'll wake them early — despite their aching, gorged bellies — and demand the new morning-after tax on all tasty treats. That means we extract our fair share from their Halloween candy booty: 100 percent of everything that isn't a Necco Wafer, apple or circus peanut.

Of course, we won't leave them empty-handed while we devour their peanut butter cups and Kit Kat bars; that would be cruel. Heh heh. We'll substitute healthier and more useful treats: fruit, carrots, granola mix, soybeans, cough drops, toothpaste, hand sanitizer, miniature thesauruses, travel-sized Kleenex packages and handmade certificates for "one free hug."

That done, we'll take aim at the neighborhood children of questionable virtue. Literally take aim. Any kids we see on the street today, we pelt with eggs. Hard-boiled eggs, since we — in addition to having powerful adult throwing arms — have the grown-up ability to use appliances and boil water.

We will toilet paper their bikes and skateboards. If they don't have the common sense (ha!) to flee when they see us coming, we will toilet paper them as well and then leave them wrapped like mummies and gently dangling from their homes' front doorknobs, like the newest coupon special from the local pizza place. And we won't be using any of that fluffy, double-soft toilet paper either.

We won't stop when evening falls. Oh no. Can't forget the trick or treating.

We grown-ups will knock on doors dressed as things that are terrifying to children: a dentist; an assistant principal, the guy who gives the DMV driving test, cauliflower, an essay test, an iPhone with no cell service, swine flu.

When children answer the door — and all parents are urged to force their children to answer the door — we will demand the good stuff: full-sized chocolate bars. Preferably Mr. Goodbars. Note: We will, reluctantly, accept alcohol, cigarettes and adult magazines or the cash equivalent.

All Hallows' Eve may still be for you kids, but beware, you're never again going to get time to enjoy it.

E-mail Steve Ouellette at: ouellette1918@gmail.com

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Lois Clermont, Editor

Cornell Cooperative Extension

Richard Gast: Cornell Ag Extension

Bob Grady

Guest Columns

Peter Hagar: Cornell Ag Connection

Health Advice

Ray Johnson: Climate Science

Gordie Little: Small Talk

Terry Mattingly: On Religion

Steve Ouellette: You Had To Ask

Colin Read: Everybody's Business

Senior Thoughts