TEAM LAST CALL

In our first year of marriage, my wife and I lived in a small apartment in a part of the city we affectionately refer to as “The Worst Place on Earth.”

We’d drift off to sleep each night to a sweet lullaby of gunshots, car alarms, and what I can only assume was the most excitable pack of cats in history congregating outside our bedroom window to satiate their perverse feline fantasies.

(For those who haven’t ever witnessed the hellish shrieking of mating cats, imagine the sound your cat makes when you step on its tail; then, imagine what it would sound like if, instead of stepping on your cat’s tail, you accidentally set it on fire with a blowtorch at the exact moment your cat stuck its whiskers into an electrical socket.)

Break-ins, car bombs, assaults – our neighborhood was a perpetual crime scene. Whereas other neighborhoods had strands of twinkling Christmas lights strewn across the porch railings, we had delightful strips of police tape strung gaily from tree to tree. Whereas other neighborhoods had streets full of children pedaling merrily around on their bicycles, we had sidewalks full of friendly cops coasting by on their friendly police bikes to give me a friendly parking ticket while a crack deal went down across the friendly street.

Whereas other neighborhoods had little to no car bombs, we had one detonate directly outside our kitchen window. Our cats were constipated for two weeks after that.

By the time our first Halloween came around, we felt conflicted between the excitement of seeing the cute neighborhood kids dressed up like ghosts and goblins and the justifiable fear that they might stab us.

We strongly considered the possibility of turning off the lights and hiding in the dark until the trick-or-treat terror passed. What changed our minds was the fact that, while getting mugged by a 10-year-old girl in a Pokemon suit would certainly be humiliating, it would be much less awful than, say, having our house set on fire because we didn’t give out any candy.

We ran down to the quickie mart and purchased enough candy to feed an entire herd of Anna Nicole Smiths. As the dinner hour ended, we took up our positions by the front door and waited for the children to arrive.

Finally, the doorbell rang. We opened the door, and there stood approximately every child born since 1990 dressed up as either a princess or Elmo. Their pupils were already dilated from consuming enough sugar to kill a moose. Their mouths were smeared with chocolate, their heads wobbling on their little necks like robots about to short-circuit. They needed more candy to maintain their sugar-high, and they were going to get it from us by any means necessary.

I tossed candy out into the crowd as fast as I could, swatting the most aggressive children away with a broom when they got too close.

“Oh, look,” I said, “A pretty little princess!”

“Two pieces of candy per person! Don’t be greedy!”

“Put my cat down.”

“No, you can’t have extra candy for your ‘cousin.’ He can come get it himself.”

“Oh, look! A pretty little princess!”

“Put my cat down.”

“No, you can’t have my wallet. Is that a real knife?”

“Did you just bite me?”

“Oh, look! A pretty little princess!”

“That’s funny. I had a watch just like that stolen from my car last week ...”

“Put my cat down.”

“Oh, look! A pretty little princess ...”

As the night wore on, the children ringing my doorbell became older and older. Eventually, I’d open the door to some smirking 15-year-old in jeans and a T-shirt, a bad teen mustache, and a greasy paper bag full of candy.

“And who are you dressed as?” I asked indignantly.

“Your momma,” he replied.

“That kind of attitude won’t get you anywhere, mister,” I said sternly. “Don’t you think you could have at least pretended to have a costume?”

“What’s your costume, dude?” he yelled, stepping towards me. “Oh, wait. I know: It’s a balding fat guy who’s about to get his ass kicked.”

“Good point,” I said, dropping a fistful of candy into his paper bag and running back inside.

And then it happened: we ran out of candy. We darted about the kitchen in a frenzy looking for items to hand out. Pickles? Packets of soy sauce? Sticks of butter? I broke out in a cold sweat as I realized that we had no option but to turn off the lights, hide behind the couch, and pray for daylight.

It only took about five minutes for the assault to begin. “Splat!” went the egg on our window. “Splat, splat!” went the eggs on our front door. “Splat, reeearrrr!” went the egg on our cat, who I had accidentally locked outside.

Eventually, the attack died down. I went outside to survey the damage. Our entire building was oozing like an enormous brick-and-mortar omelette. I turned to the street, shaking my fist in the air and calling out into the dark night.

“I’ll get you kids,” I yelled, “if it’s the last thing I ...”

“Splat!”