13 Rules of Halloween

Mooooo-ha-ha-haaaaaaaa! Halloween is upon us and the ghouls are creeping. Surely you'll be out among them trick-or-treating tonight, too. Well, be warned. If the clouds part and the moon shines upon your unfortunate features revealing them to be of someone too old, too greedy or too spooked to participate in the festivities, many curses will fall upon you and your treat bag. Break one of the 13 cardinal rules of trick-or-treating and NO CANDY FOR YOU! Woooooh-hee-hee-hee-heeeeeee!

1. Wear a costume.
2. Shave your beard.
3. If you're taller than 6-feet, hunch down.
4. Shave your beard.
5. Tote a traditional orange jack-o-lantern bucket for collecting candy. When you walk from house to house with a large, black garbage sack, you look like you're robbing people.
6. Shave your beard.
7. Open your mouth and say, "Trick or treat." Don't grunt. Don't shove your bag toward the candy bowl. Don't smile menacingly. Don't just stand there looking at me looking at you.
8. Shave your beard.
9. Do not carry two buckets and claim to be collecting candy for yourself and a mystery family member who sadly could not go trick-or-treating for being struck by a terrible undiagnosed illness. This is trick-or-treating NOT trick-and-treating. You can't have your candy and his candy and eat it, too.
10. Shave your beard! (I am not joking. Shave it. Do not come to my doorstep asking for candy with even one dangling chin hair wagging at me. It's a dead give-away that you are too old to be out on a night like this.)
11. Do not claim to be trick-or-treating for your child who is "asleep in the car." Satan will set your pants on fire just as sure as I will turn you away. He and I both have the prerogative to do that on Halloween.
12. Don't be so chicken-hearted that when something jumps out and startles you you turn around and run over your own offspring. If you can't go bravely, send your husband. If he plans to carry a bucket for himself, tell him to shave his beard.
13. At 9 o'clock, Halloween, the treating part at least, is officially OVER. Do not knock on my door or ring my doorbell, unless you want to see something really scary. 

Bwaaaah-haaaa-heeeee-heeeeeee-haaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!