Candy Rush
Jennifer Flaten

How much does this family love free candy? So much that we braved a downpour to go trick or treating. Eh, I exaggerated; it wasn’t a downpour, more like a nice steady, cold rain. Actually, the rain wasn’t the worst part; the worst part was the wind. I was chief umbrella holder and a couple times, there I thought I was going to pull a Mary Poppins.

Still, the rain didn’t stop us. The rain made some of us wet and grumpy; guess which one, but it didn’t stop us. It was the first time that we had inclement weather for trick or treating.

While it didn’t prevent us from going out, it did cause us to alter our plan of attack. Normally, we can cover our whole neighborhood in less than two hours. Not this year, in 12 years of trick or treating this is the first time we didn’t go out for the whole two hours.

Yes, the same kids who liken our family walks with the dog to a death march were unstoppable candy collecting machines on Halloween. All right, so maybe I was gently encouraging the kids to go just one more block. We had to; there were scant few Snickers bars in the treat bags. If I have to schlep around my neighborhood in the rain, I am damn well going to get a nice supply of Snickers bars.

We are always one of the first families out trick or treating. I swear the minute the clock strikes five the kids are out the door ringing the neighbor’s doorbell. This year, just like in years past we hit the street right on the stroke of five.

Most of Halloween day was rainy. There was a brief break in the rain, but it started right up again before we stepped out, naturally. By the time we got to the last couple of houses on our route, we were soaked. This worked to our advantage I think we got some sympathy candy.

Sadly, even with the sympathy candy, our haul was a lot less than our haul last year. We couldn’t even add in any leftover candy, from what we handed out to the trick or treaters, to our drawer, because we didn’t have any left.

In fact, we actually ran out of candy here and had to turn off the lights and sit in silence during the last half hour of trick or treating. Our dark and silent house didn’t stop loads of little “explanative deleted” kids from ringing the doorbell repeatedly and with aggression.

I read that most parents snitch the kids Halloween candy after the kids go to bed. Not in our house when the kids were very little, after trick or treat, I would have the kids dump out the candy and we sort through it, ostensibly to weed out candy that wasn’t appropriate for little kids. What, dark chocolate is inappropriate for little kids.

Even though the kids are older, they still dump out the candy and sort through it. I think they just love seeing their haul in all its glory. After sorting it, it is time to pay the toll. Each kid gives me a piece of candy. Then they start swapping candy, although it doesn’t really matter we dump all the candy into the candy drawer at the end of the night.

I rely on a good haul of candy at Halloween, if we get a good haul I don’t have to buy candy for the candy drawer until at least after the holiday. We will run low on candy by Thanksgiving, but we replenish it at the local Christmas parade.