Halloween is cancelled

Ever since the incident at Lowe's with the 6 foot animatronic witch, Toby's been on high alert for all things Halloween. As I'm driving down the freeway, he yells, "Do NOT look over there!" causing me to take out traffic cones and endanger the lives of inmates and what have you. I, being human, do what humans do and look in the rearview mirror to see a giant inflatable Frankenstein selling cars.

The same warning pops up in every store. "Wow, mom. There is something right over there that we do not like. Guess what it is..." I pause from frantically eating my cheeseburger or whatever and halfheartedly indicate that it is, in fact, Halloween stuff. The good news is that he's gone from being terrified and burying his face to kind of a sick fascination with things that scare him. Wait, that's not good news...

Yesterday, when I was eating Mexican food (not to be confused with today's Mexican food) he flagged down a waiter. "Hey." Toby says. "We do NOT like all this Halloween stuff," waving expansively at the cobwebs and bats and whatnot. The poor guy had a fairly limited grasp of English, and besides, how much are waiters supposed to listen to kids? But he just stood there as Toby explained it again. "See this? See this Halloween stuff? We do NOT like it." The waiter looked at me kind of helplessly, and I indicated that he could stop listening to Ned Flanders and get back to his job.

I tried, again, to explain to Toby that our rules are not everyone's rules, and that besides, it wasn't even that guys JOB to take down the Halloween stuff, but he stood firm. "Halloween is cancelled." he told me. So there you have it.