Halloween candy

I'm rejoining the Halloween ranks.

I haven't really done anything with Halloween since high school, when I handed out the candy at my parents' house. Through college, it just wasn't an issue. In my first few jobs, I always had to work the "Beggar's Nights," as I recently heard a woman call it.

Today is Trick or Treat night in Delaware, and I have no valid excuses to avoid this community-building event. One of the guys at work mentioned he'd had his trick or treat night in his community, and they only had two children come to their home. Always the deal-seeker, I bought his remaining stock of candy, which amounted to four 10-packs of candy bars and two half-bags of suckers. Speaking of suckers, I bought all this for $5.

But then today I started thinking about the neighborhood where I live. There seem to be a number of children here. I know of at least 10 kids just in a three-building area. Another coworker told me a lot of parents just drop their kids off at one end of my street and pick them up at the other end an hour later. So I had to wonder if 30-some candy bars and a couple dozen suckers would do the trick.

So I returned to the store and got more. I'd hate to run out. I'd hate even more to have to be one of those people who gives a kid one mini-candy bar. Now I think I have too much. I'll know for sure between 6 and 8 p.m. today.

Shopping in dad's closet

I'd been thinking about getting a jogging suit lately, mostly because it's been cold outside and I wanted to have something I could zip up and zip down prior to our softball games. Anyway, I mentioned this to my parents while visiting tonight.

Suddenly out came a whole wardrobe of that sort of thing. My dad's put on a pound or two lately and said he didn't think he'd ever fit some of these things, so someone might as well get some use of it. Given that I'm his height, I thought, "What the heck. I'll see what he has."

He had exactly what I wanted, some simple jogging suits, not too flashy, not too bland. Ended up with a decent loot of what I'd wanted.

Here's the question that comes up... Just how much of a geeky loser do you have to be before you start taking hand-me-downs that you dad has determined aren't stylish? (Those who have met my dad get double points for understanding just what that means.)

To put a happy ending on this story... since I've saved the money on a couple jogging suits, I've decided to stop being so cheap and buy some candy to distribute on Halloween.

Weird wake-up

I keep having the same really weird dream, about once a week. I keep dreaming my alarm starts buzzing.

When I hear the alarm go off, I truly wake up. I get out of bed, walk over to the alarm and turn it off. Then I head to the restroom for the morning routine.

One morning, I stepped into the shower and began thinking about how strange it was to feel so tired, like I'd only slept a few hours. I walked around the apartment to find the clocks all saying 2:30.

Since that first day, I'm smarter when I dream about the alarm ringing. Now usually I'll figure out what time it really is about the time I'm done shaving.

I'm not sure what it says about your life when all you dream about is waking up and going to work.