I think Halloween is the very best holiday! My only complaint is that it's mostly limited to children. This is the perfect time for adults. You get to dress as weirdly as you want to and demand things from strangers while uttering vaguely terroristic threats. "Trick or Treat, smell my feet, or give me something good to eat."

As a matter of fact, my family claims I exhibit that type of behavior all year. While I get the occasional Snickers bar thrown my way, it hardly gets me any returns.

Halloween for adults is tame. You may get to go trick or treating in saloons or at parties, but the chances for getting candy corn or a marshmallow owl are almost nonexistant. My troll and I threw some famous parties. They all looked like Halloween but that was because of the guests. We worked in a hospital and those people really know how to let their hair ALL THE WAY DOWN!

The trick was to manage to get all three shifts there. 11pm to 7am showed up around 8 pm. 3p to 11pm made it just around midnight and the day shift got there about 5pm and stayed until just before dawn. (I'm still not sure if everyone actually left. There may be some guests still finishing off the keg at our last address.)

We had a Toga party about 20 years ago that created a mystery that remains unsolved to this day. Everyone arrived in togas made from sheets of every description.

There were sheets with hospital names from 6 different states stamped on them. There were sterile paper O.R. sheets. A very tall beauty wore a toga made from a king size pillowcase. Most of the guys offered to help her make a bed....Any bed, anywhere, anytime!

The mystery of it was, the next day as the Troll and I were cleaning up and checking the closets for leftover people, we found sheets. Nobody in them, just the sheets. Various stamped hospital names, some plain, some with Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. Several sets of O.R. paper sheets, (No longer sterile.) I hadn't noticed anyone who was wearing regular clothes under their togas. I still want to know how they got home wearing only underwear? Both guys and girls! I can't even vouch for the fact that they were all wearing underwear as we found a bra and a pair of jockey shorts in the rubble. We have to assume one couple left totally naked.

At our Halloween party we had a group of 'Doclings', (first, second and third year residents), show up wearing green scrubs proclaiming themselves to be "Free-Lance Gynecologists". We had one guy who came wrapped in a shroud kit complete with toe tags. He sipped his beer through a hole cut for that purpose. A very young, well-endowed blonde wore a devil costume. It was a red one-piece swimsuit with a velvet tail and a hat with horns. One of the 'Free Lancers' kept trying to do an exorcism on her. I would have loved to take this bunch door to door in the neighborhood. Trick or Treat would have been taken to a whole new level.

We had the usual quota of witches, some of whom even wore a costume. A lot of them treated it as a "Come as you are" party. On the subject of witches--- Have you ever noticed how many females will tell you they are, indeed, witches?

They offer to "work a root" on your enemies or they may ask to read your Tarot cards. Some will just wear a strange expression while lighting a bunch of candles. If you ask what they are doing they will answer," I am a Witch!". A friend of ours, who is totally and proudly Jewish, told us about being approached at work by a woman she only knew vaguely.

Witchy Woman-" Oh, I didn't know you were into Wiccan. Do you belong to a coven or are you a solitaire?"

Esther- "Huh? What's Wiccan? And I don't play cards at all."

W.W.- "I noticed your pentagram necklace. I don't wear mine here because some people get nervous about pentagram symbols." She points at Esther's necklace, "That's a beautiful one you have, a little different from the usual."

Esther- grabbing at her Star of David necklace and looking at it, "What are you talking about? My parents gave me this for my Bat Mitvah."

W.W.- "That's all right, I won't tell anyone if you don't want to come out as a witch." She wiggles her fingers at Esther and says, "Blessed Be."

Esther is now completely confused and hides in a closet until quitting time. Witchy Woman still nods at her and wiggles her fingers with a knowing smile. Esther is now convinced that Witches are Naturally Blonde!

I did something overtly witchy once. I had a boss who was holding her own Salem trials. She was not a witch but she was a bitch. She had decided to weed out anyone who questioned her lack of judgment. The first one she went after abruptly quit. I was #2 on her list. She tried to pull a fast one on me. She called me into her office, which was half glass and not soundproof. She flapped a handwritten list in my face and said, "These patients have all complained about you and I think we need to address the issue."

She had flapped rapidly but I could teach speed reading to Evelyn Wood. I recognized the names. The first one was a woman who I saw 2 days before. I had left my stethoscope in her apartment and she had called the office to let them know to page me and tell me she had it. At my next stop I realized it was gone and went back to her apartment to get it. Her and I had a great relationship and we traded books about cats. I know she hadn't complained because when I came back she said, "I called your office to tell them and your boss asked me a lot of questions about whether I was satisfied with you. You better watch out because I think she's out to get you!" The other names on the list were people I saw regularly and had no problem with. One of them was unable to speak due to a stroke and her live-in caregiver spoke 99.9% Polish. I knew they had not called unless their parakeet had translated. She had fabricated the list to scare me. I wasn't scared, I was furious! I took it over her head to her chief. See, if any of these 'complaints' were legitimate, she would have had to make a written report of them as soon as they were made and sent them up the chain of command. I requested a hearing.

While we were waiting for the hearing in 2 weeks, I bought a lovely necklace. It was a silver pentagram with an amber stone in the middle, about 2 inches in diameter. Whenever she called me into her fishbowl office, I made sure the pentagram was in full view. The first time she saw it she got so distracted she forgot what she was going to yell at me about. She kept looking at it and looking at my face. I was wearing a smirky smile and I kept fondling that pentagram while she stuttered. I loved watching her try not to stare at it. I would tuck it in, out of view, when she wasn't around, and whip it out when she was.

After the 'hearing', I got the transfer I had requested and when I left the room I had the poor taste to stand near the door to hear her boss rip her a new one. She lost her supervisory position. See, what goes around really DOES come around� and then it bites you in the ass!

Real, practicing witches don't tell you that they are. The Salem Witch Trials weren't THAT long ago so bragging is not a good idea, just in case.

I was approached once by someone who I admired and respected. She invited me to a 'Gathering' on the first of May. (That's a big witch holiday, Beltane.) She never said the words witch or Wiccan. I didn't go because I never did like organizational religion. I figured someone would pass a collection plate.

Keep in mind that Halloween is the day before a big Christian holiday, The Feast of All Saints. Now we know we are not all saintly so it's only fair to have a day for the rest of us. The day before Halloween is for some traditional vandalism. Mischief Night!

Festooning trees with toilet paper and soaping up windows are part of this celebration. Cans of shaving cream are good for squirting at the unsuspecting. In your more rural areas, the practice of 'Cow tipping' and if it's really rural, Out house tipping. Over the years it has escalated. Now you might get spray paint all over your new aluminum siding, Pepsi in your gas tank ( Pepsi seems to have a higher sugar level than Coca-Cola.) It's a lot more real vandalism than just the sheer exuberance of youth.

The worst mischief I am guilty of ,(not counting putting Pepsi in the gas tank of my ex-husband's Corvair, which I was making payments on.) was taking brown lunch bags, putting some ripe dog turds in and twisting it closed. You then put it on someone's front porch and put a match to it. When it fires up, ring the doorbell and run like hell!

My girlfriends, Mary and Hanna, were the best partners for this caper. They always had at least, 14 dogs. HEALTHY DOGS! WELL FED DOGS! Look at Halloween for what it started out to be, an end of harvest festival. All the tomatoes and zucchini are picked. The Pumpkins are ready and waiting. The daylight shortens and the night time lengthens. We have to do something the change from autumn to winter and we're fresh out of cows and out houses 'round here!

HEY! Mary? Hanna? I got the bags and the zippo lighter. You bring the full buckets! I got the address of my former boss!