Monday Morning, 11/5/2018

I’m an optimist by nature. Not many know that about me because I also like to complain. For some reason, people believe these are opposite traits. They’re not. I’m an optimist who likes to complain.

Some examples of my optimism:

• Despite years of evidence to the contrary, I still think of myself as a thin man who happens to be overweight right now but will be thin again by next year.
• I fully expect, ever since I went to Puerto Rico in 1992, that I will learn to speak fluent Spanish. (And after Spanish, several other languages.)
• I honestly believe that each year on October 31, our cul-de-sac home will be deluged by trick-or-treaters.

My wife and I went to Costco last week and bought some treats to give out on Halloween. My wife thought we should only buy one box, but I said we needed three. (Even that, I felt surely, would not be enough.) We settled on a box of thirty-six Linden’s Chocolate Chippers and a box of thirty Hershey’s candy bars.  When those were gone, we would have to resort to using our own private stash of 100 calorie packs and maybe some dollar bills for the teenagers who showed up long after dinner.

At 3:00 last Wednesday, I was ready. We had the added excitement this year of our two grandsons staying with us, so I figured I’d go to a few houses with the 2 ½ year old and then rush back to give out our own candy. But even though I was ready at three, we wouldn’t be going until at least four. That gave me an hour to complain about having to wait. Right when we were about to go, two costumed kiddies came to our door.  

“I knew it!” I said. “We’re going to run out of treats!” My wife just rolled her eyes.

We did get some more trick-or-treaters. By dinner time, we’d given out about ten bags of cookies and the same amount of candy bars. No teenagers showed up after dinner. No more ghoulies or superheroes or princesses rang our doorbell. In the end, we were left with almost four dozen Halloween treats, plus the bucket of candy our grandson brought home.

“Great,” I thought. “Now I’m going to have to eat all this fattening stuff myself.”

Oh, well, I can always lose that extra weight next year.

#MondayMorning #Halloween #Costco #Hershey's #Linden's