I was living and going to skool in Victoria (Hmm. On second thought, this just might be a scary story after all). Anyway. I had two roommates, Tim and Jane. Being the more thoughtful of the three of us, Jane naturally had planned ahead and bought two bags of candy. Tim happened to have a bag of raisins in the little boxes, the kind that every kid hates getting, and me, well, I got the basket down from the cupboard. So we were all set. That night, Jane was supervising a kids party at Oak Bay Rec. and Tim and I were doing what we normally did which was having extra frothy cappuccino and waxing philosophic. Well, I guess we were bored and, of course, when one is bored, one eats (well, that's what we did). Bad news for the kiddies, I'm afraid--we spied the basket. Hmm, I wonder what those little Crispy Crunch bars taste like? I asked aloud. They were good, we quickly discovered.

We munched away on a couple when the doorbell rang. Our first beggar had arrived. To the door we went with basket in hand and chocolate in our mouths. It was, of course, a bunch of kids looking for handouts. Well, maybe it was the full moon wreaking havoc with us, maybe it was the extra jazzed cappuccino wreaking havoc with us, actually I think it was simply us wreaking havoc on the chocolate--we gave them the raisins. It would be better for their teeth, we said. We're doing a rotation, the last people got chocolate, so you guys get raisins, we said. Too bad you didn't come sooner, Tim said. Too bad you didn't come later, I said. Anyhow, you get the idea, we would be damned if we were going to give up the chocolate.

So the evening went on. Tim and I came up with whatever excuse we could think of to justify the raisins and torture the kids a bit. Then this little girl showed up dressed as a bird. She was a typical six year old Trick or Treater/Confidence Trickster--typical except for her attitude. She wasn't having any of the raisins no matter how we legitimized them. "I'll have the chocolate", she boldly asserted. "You will, will you? Now hang on a moment, don't underestimate the goodness of these here raisins.", Tim maintained. My strategy was to confuse and I focused on her costume. "So, what kind of bird are you?" I asked trying to deflect her attention. "I dunno, just a bird." she replied, eyeing the Crispy Crunch. Well, knowing a thing or two about the avian species, I started to bombard her with questions as to what kind of bird she was. "Are you a robin?"--"No." "A sparrow?"--"No!" "An owl?"--"Nooo!" "A duck? A Storm Petrel? A Dunlin? A Common Merganser? A Hooded Merganser? A Red-Footed Booby? A Venezuelan Long-Haired Sea Parrot?"--"No, no, no, no, no, no and no!" "A loon?"--"You're the loon!" "*sigh* Well, I don't know what you are!" I said. "Hurry up." countered she. At this point Tim jumped in, "O-ho! Impatience will get you nowhere! Sooo, it's raisins for you!" With that, we shut the door and returned to the living room with the remaining chocolates.

Shortly thereafter, we finished the chocolate and sat in the living room with that 'I feel sick yet content' feeling. Then Jane came home. Tim, the bastard, got up quickly and said he'll fix the cappuccinos, leaving me sitting there surrounded by wrappers. "Did you get many kids?", asked Jane. "Ummm...nnooo? No. We didn't, no. Want some raisins? Heh-heh-heh." I said, looking guilty, but seemingly getting away with it. "Well, where did all the chocolates go?"--"Oh, oh! Yes. Yes, we did get a lot of kids, yes we did. Whoops."--"You guys ate them all, didn't you?"--"Yes. Yes we did." I looked at my feet. "Well, no matter. I'm sick of chocolate." Jane confessed. Apparently, she had been dipping in the goodies all night too. So, it was a beneficial Hallowe'en for all (except the kids who got raisins). Boo!