Our tale begins, dear reader, with a familiar scene. Familiar…and yet BONE-CHILLING for five-year-olds everywhere. Imagine, if you will, a child…left to his own devices for the better part of the afternoon. As the sun begins to set and the ghouls begin to emerge and wander the streets of a suburban hellscape, this child — wanting nothing more than to join his fellow damned souls on an moonlit quest for candy — is first tasked with the unspeakable horror of…
CLEANING UP HIS ROOM.
When I arrived home from work this evening, Miles was entering hour two of being told that, if he had any intention of going trick-or-treating tonight, he was going to need to clean his room first. Every step of the way, Miles made excuses (he wasn’t done playing, he didn’t know where things went, etc). All I said was, “Time is running out.” It didn’t do much good until, around 6:15, Miles peered out of his window to find several of the neighbors already dressed in costumes and heading forth to ring doorbells.
At this point, Miles LOST IT. There were howls to rival those of any lycanthropic beast being transmogrified by an orbiting lunar body. Enough crying to outweigh the collective tears of a carload of sweaty teenagers knocking on a remote farmhouse door in Texas. Enough stomping around to make even the most bothersome poltergeist grab his coat and hat and say, “I’m outta here.”
It was hard to talk Miles off the ledge on this one. But hey, it was a good lesson in time management, and to that end, I gotta be honest — it sort of enjoyed it.
Miles finally did get his room clean about 15 minutes later, after which we pulled on our costumes and headed out. Jaclyn stayed behind to man the door, leaving Miles and me to navigate the neighborhood as we pleased.
Despite being separated from most of his neighborhood friends due to his excessive dallying, Miles bravely strode up to every door as he filled TWO pails with enough candy to last the winter. As soon as I started telling Miles that we were out of space and needed to head home, he immediately posited two solutions:
- “You can use your pockets.”
- “I can eat the candy to make more room.”
And start eating candy he did, dear reader, but never so hilariously as when I tried to take a couple selfies with him.
Miles’s delayed departure earlier in the night might have been a headache, but it did lead to one good thing — we were out late enough to enjoy a truly creepy evening once the sun went down.
The Perils (& Pride) of Paternity 