Happy Halloween: The Trick's on Me This Year

This year, when I open my door on Halloween night to kids announcing "trick or treat," I'm opting for "trick."

Of course, I won't dare any wayward schoolchildren to play a trick on me, although I'd be interested to see whether any of them had thought through a "Plan B" for this kind of situation. I won't even deny them the handout they sought when the knocked on my door.

Instead, I'm giving out tricks disguised as treats.

Anyone can hand out candy on Halloween. The prudish among us can hand out apples or floss or bags of tea. People who hate children can hand out rocks. Fundamentalists could hand out "tracks" that explain the salvation process, which I'm pretty sure I received a few times growing up in semi-rural Alabama.

But who among us can hand out packets of Splenda?

I mean, besides me.

This has been a dream of mine for a couple of years.

Two years ago, I stocked my house with just enough candy to survive Halloween night. When 8:00 p.m. hit and we were down to seven pieces of candy in the house, I tried desperately to think of a backup plan that didn't involve going out to the store. Walgreens was only 2 blocks away, and I really didn't haven anything else to do, but it was dark outside and I was fighting for Principle. Or possibly just laziness.

But either way, I wasn't going back outside. Instead, I scavenged the house for back-up plans to distribute once my seven pieces of candy disappeared. When the results of my search were 2 apples, an assortment of tea bags and two partially unwanted cats, I got a bit nervous, but I was absolutely committed to the plan.

Thankfully, only five other kids came to my door that night, but the evening taught me a lesson: never again would I risk running out of good candy and having to resort to giving out something ridiculous.

Instead, I would stock up on ridiculous things to start with. This way, if I run out of stuff to hand out, no one will be disappointed.

The only rule of this exercise is that nothing I give out will be so utterly ludicrous that it is self-evidently meant as a joke. There will be no rubber chickens, no pocket-sized New Testaments (with Psalms and Proverbs included, for reasons never properly explained), and no bags of rocks or condoms. Instead, everything I give out will be something that someone, somewhere, might actually think was appropriate.

So, this Halloween, I'll be the old lady handing out bags or tea or muffin mix. I'll be the weirdo handing out Star Wars trading cards and leftover Valentines Day candy or cards with the names still visible. I'll be the cheapskate distributing my unwanted old VHS tapes, including the homemade ones.

I'll save my best stuff for the teenagers to old to be doing this, or the parents with one-year-olds who are clearly looking to score for themselves, because their kids can't even eat solid food yet.  These groups will get yogurt. If the container busts before they get home, that isn't my problem.

So if you need some Mardi Gras beads, come on by. If you're out of long underwear, I have some extra that I don't need. If you need a vacuum cleaner that only sort of works, or that Singing Butler painting that was popular 10 years ago at Bombay Company, you know where to find me.

And thanks to Starbucks, I have both more packets of Splenda and more temporarily trendy CDs from now-faded artists than I know what to do with.

Or actually, I now know exactly what to do with them: give them to you and your bratty little children.

What's more, if you don't have a place to put all these things, I'm pretty sure I have some old, deep, baking dishes left over from my last yard sale.

You're welcome to them all.

It's my treat.