The houses that handed out booze were my favorites.

Halloweenies: Notes on the Most Wonderful Night of the Year

• There was a dad at Kid Gleemonex’s school Halloween parade dressed in the orange tux and top hat of Lloyd Christmas (he even had a cane), and it was ALL I COULD DO not to go up behind him and thwap the back of his knees with my umbrella. The only thing that stopped me — and y’all, it was close — was: What if he didn't get it? Like, a friend talked him into a two-person costume he really didn't understand all that well? And here's this crazy lady at an elementary-school Halloween parade, assaulting him for no reason …
• The girls’ costumes at the same event ran about 20 percent Elsa and Anna. The costumes were clearly stratified by price, from the $8.99 grocery-store version (the modern take on the cheapo-mask-and-plastic-bib store-bought costumes of my childhood classrooms) to the fitted, heavy $140 one with a long train, real beading, and a full, flowing satin skirt with lace overlay and real-looking long braided wig. 
• I wasn’t able to stop myself shouting “Oi! Potter!” in my big fake British accent at the dozen or so Harry Potters I saw that day and evening. I am what I am. 
• Rainbow Brite is apparently back. 
• My own couples’ costume idea came too late to be usable (Friday morning): Werewolf Bar Mitzvah. One person is in a werewolf mask and glove/claws, but wearing a suit and a yarmulke and carrying the Torah. The other person is dressed as a rabbi (also wolfed up). I love a costume that like four people on Earth, one of whom is Tina Fey, would get. 
• The kids got a great haul in the spiffy neighborhood we trick-or-treated in, but who were the cheap motherfuckers who were offloading all their Celebrity Cruises pillow chocolates? I’d like to go TP the fuck out of their house, man. Shaving-cream their windows too.