I Have To Practice This

I had already walked out of a discount department store because the high-pitched squalling of some infant in a cart was making me bugfuck, and there in the lobby of my bank was some kiddygartner sitting with her feet dangling off one of the seats, lolling against an older sister and wailing a long, thready, tuneless complaint about whatever. Her mom, deeply involved at a teller window, didn’t sound like the sharpest knife in the drawer either and I could tell it would be a while. As the whine spiked for the second time I snapped my head around in explosive frustration. I was not trying to make a face of any kind, but I must have given the kid the Crippling Stinkeye Of Thor because her eyes got wide and she Shut. Up. Completely. Until I finished my transaction at the window she barely issued another murmur.

I have to figure out how to do this at will. Not least because it’s Halloween night again and pretty soon the little bastards will be knocking at the door demanding their ransom. I got their number — I’ve had candy left over for the last five years and this year there was really no point adding to the reserve supply. Packaged Halloween candy is such crap I doubt they can tell the difference; it’s been down in the spare fridge anyway.

They’d probably think the Valhalla Glare was just part of the Halloween fun though. Maybe I should get a paintball gun.

Brat Candy (II)

I got lucky at the last minute. After another day of forgetting to buy protection candy for the little bastards, I remembered that last year, I overbought and stuffed the remains in a plastic sack in the fridge downstairs (for weird reasons, I have always lived in a house with a spare basement refrigerator).

There were three varieties and the total weight was a good three pounds. I judged it would hold out, especially if no one got more than one piece. In fact, as of quarter to nine or so, there have been about four knocks and perhaps ten squirts in costume.

Good job. This supply ought to hold out to next year, and maybe even to the year after. Back in the fridge.

Brat Candy

Hard upon today’s encounter with Pestilent Child comes the realization that it is nearly October thirty-first and I have not yet gotten a bag of Brat Candy.

For a while I tried handing out nominally healthy treats, like little sesame candies from the co-op health food store, until I realized it was like throwing a vitamin tablet into a shit sandwich, anyway. The little creeps are out to gorge themselves on mass-produced sugar bombs, and nothing I say or do in the ten seconds we are face to face is going to change that. So I just started buying bagged Brat Candy, trying to avoid the most unpleasant corporate manufacturers (like Mars, which does sordid animal testing) and, actually, looking for the least appetizing candy I can find, hoping they’ll avoid my house next year.

Yeah, I’m a Halloween Grinch. But consider: I do business at my residence. One night a year, I have to scratch evening clients or else interrupt appointments so the little bastards won’t egg my house later (it’s happened). I have to lock the cats in back rooms so they won’t get out. All so a couple of dozen kids that I’ve never seen before and will never see again can put on pre-fabbed costumes and collect a piece of candy that I wouldn’t feed to a dog.

No wonder I hate it.

I think I’ll Google “bad tasting candy.”