Costumes and Masks and All

Sat on the porch last night, lit by the flickering of my two (very cool!) pumpkins, and handed out sweets to youths that, clearly, didn't need 'em. Had a blast -- how could you not?

My own kids were out gathering their own sugar from the other local benefactors of the candy industry. Sending your kids out on their own to harvest their own kill gives you (well, me, anyway) an oddly satisfied feeling of competent parenting -- probably akin to the vestigial thrill of feasting on that first wooly mammoth flank dragged home by little Kronk.

Anyway. I love seeing all the costumes. One kid came up carrying a light saber and wearing a Darth Vader mask on top of a pumpkin body.

"Ah, the infamous Darth Vader Pumpkin," I said, cleverly.

As they were leaving, his buddy (who had been wearing, I think, a mismatched shirt and pants) turned to him and said "How come no one knows what I am, but everyone gets your costume?"

And the other kid turned, arms akimbo, and in a voice redolant with Duh, ain't it obvious? simply said "Darth Vader Pumpkin!"

Of course.