Anybody home?

Last night Mary and I took our dog Tabby for a walk. We're pretty good about getting Tab exercise everyday (weather pending), so it is really part of our routine. We have a little regiment that involves me getting Tabby ready (harness and leash on) and Mary getting the house ready (locking the front door and turning on the front light if it's dark). It was already dark, so we turned the light on and took off down the road.

It was only six o'clock, but in our neighborhood we don't typically have many trick or treaters, and last night was, obviously, Halloween.

The walk was fine: Tabby sniffing at and peeing on things, letting the world know she owns Evergreen Drive. When we turned back onto our road, however, we ran into a dilemma. As we approached our place, two tiny trick or treaters accompanied by adults were slowly walking up our drive. Oh no! We left our light on-and on Halloween, in a neighborhood like ours, an outside light signals candy. The scene turned slow motion. We looked at each other.

"Go up to them and aplogize that we left our light on and that we don't have any candy," I whispered to Mary.

"Run up ahead of them and find some candy in the house," she whispered back.

It was dark, but Mary was sure that the candy collectors recognized us and our dog and that we lived in the lit place they were approaching.

We snapped looks back and forth to each other. Walking. Whispered 'what should we do's?' back and forth. Still walking. Approaching...

And at that moment we made the decision. We did what any sorry hosts without candy would have done. Maybe. We kept right on walking. Past our house, down the street and out of sight.

So, our apologies go out to the little princess and Yoda who took tiny little steps, with high hopes that they would hit the sugar jackpot. We're still wondering how the parents broke the news when nobody answered our door.

We'll be sure to turn our lights OFF next year.