All In All It Was A Good Weekend
HOLIDAY WEEKENDS USUALLY SUCK. This one, even though it is really an intrinsically minor holiday – Halloween – is another one that tends to slide downhill quickly. However…
This year our Halloween went by on a relatively horizontal glide path. No sudden plunges into nonsense or vituperative cruelty.
After a few years at this, my wife, the lovely and non-chocolate consuming, Dawn, and I have our standard Halloween operating ritual polished and smoothly running.
As soon as we detect the first of the costumed little “trick or treaters” in the neighborhood we turn out all the lights, make sure the cars aren’t visible from the street, and retreat into a curtained off room to watch a movie or two. Dawn has forbidden me from setting out any steel traps on the front lawn again. This year we had the added attraction of The World Series game to watch. We always figured that if the game was not going well, we could switch to a movie on a moment’s notice.
When we follow that routine, well provisioned with snacks, we can spend a quiet evening at home without the constant doorbell ringing and herds of kids chaperoned by parents who look to be both bored and heavily armed.
Dawn and I were discussing this whole thing a few days ago and I confessed that, once I had stopped going door to door begging candy on Halloween (about age 10), I quickly became bored with being on the other end of the candy process. Handing out candy to little kids was OK, but when I would see kids who were in High School holding out pillowcases demanding candy it lost its cuteness and turned into thinly veiled extortion.
We have solved this problem by removing the chocolate target from our backs. Lights out, movies selected – Roll ‘em! This was our Friday evening.
Saturday proved to be a day with decent weather and some really terrific sales on candy. I’m not a big “sweets and candy” person, but when the stuff gets marked down like it was laced with cyanide, I’ll scoop it up. I doubt that Moses turned down the Manna from Heaven if he just happened to be on the Atkins Diet at the time. If they are willing to mark down the price I’m willing to stock up for the occasional craving.
Sunday was another good day – most of them are. Coffee, Church, Lunch, Nap. That takes us up to late afternoon. At that point we can proceed, safe in the knowledge that there won’t be herds of costumed kids roaming the streets scaring the squirrels and eventually sending their Dentist’s children to Ivy League Schools.
Today, being Monday, it really isn’t part of the weekend, but things have continued to go in a positive direction.
I needed to visit the Chapel at St. Arbucks, to give thanks and get an iced tea. Behind the counter was a “Newbie,” learning the ropes with live customers. I ordered my tea. She asked me for my name.
“Spartacus. I am Spartacus.”
She looked up from the register, paused, and then let her training take control.
“Very good. We’ll have your order right up for you. Do you want your receipt?”
Sure enough, when my tea showed up at the other end of the counter, put there by The Boss, it looked like this.
The Boss looked at me and shook her head as she walked away.
I’m cutting her some slack on the spelling. After all, the movie was made decades before she was born.
Like I said – It was a good weekend.
Down the Hall on Your Left 