Halloween 2009

Even though I'm sick as a dog - I mustered the strength to be there with my kids for Halloween. At the suggestion of my pastor, Andrew VanderMaas, we did our trick or treating over in a certain cool neighborhood in Richmond Heights where everyone goes hog wild with serious candies and decorations!   Anyway, Oliver was falling asleep so Mary Ellen stayed with him in the car while I soldiered on with the Great Geeg throughout the neighborhood - it was great. There was one house that even I got a little spooked (glad that Ollie didn't come or he would have nightmares for years to come).  But I digress... So... what's interesting about this particular neighborhood was that EVERYBODY asked the SAME THING: "So do you have a joke for us?" [A side note - growing up in KY - NOBODY asked us for a joke - we would think they're weird if they did.  Guess this is a Midwestern thing - kind of like calling rednecks "hoosiers" - whatever that means! Again, I digress...] So...the Great Geeg really only had one joke which was, "Where do the sheeps get their haircut?  At the Baa-Baa shop."  OK...since everybody was asking the same question - by the time we got to the 7th house. Gigi got really exasperated.  She was like throwing up her arms and saying, "Dude I've said this 7 times and do I have to do this????" It was hilarious.  But the real kicker was that we got to the 10th house and by then Gigi was glumly telling her joke which she has repeated 9 times before.  The guy with the candy at his house said, "Nope. Not good enough! Give me another one."  At that point I really thought the Great Geeg was going to kill the guy.  I gingerly stepped in and prodded Gigi with, "C'mon you can think of another one."  The guy, fearing for his life perhaps, asked gently with, "Well do you have a knock knock joke?"  To my relief, Gigi did have one: "Knock Knock. Who's there? Interrupting Cow. Interrupting Cow W...then Gigi yells, "MOO!"  That got the guy cracking up!  She scored her candy.  There were five more houses and five more of the same joke.  I was already getting tired too.  But she managed to make it through!  Next time - I'll have the kids memorize a lot of jokes...

One last thing...one of the "candies" was a bagged pretzel.  I'm not a complainer or even a quibbler - in fact I'm very laid back about life. But regarding Halloween treats - pretzels just don't do it for me. I PROMISE you that that pretzel will be the very last piece eaten in the next few day and it would probably be fed to Lucy our brother-in-law's (he lives with us) dog.