All of Us Decided to Retreat

Heading all the way in the city for a haircut on a Saturday night.  I’ve decide I don’t want the Bozo the Clown wings extending out any further for my upcoming trip to the States.   Photos on screen saver show up defaming my character on the bad hair days that one can see rotate in and rotate out.  I wrote the hair place to say I was running late.  So are they.  I was told to take my time. 

Tonight it was the Halloween celebration at our compound.  Bah Humbug.  No one in the family wanted to decorate the house.  I wasn’t particularly interested to go out and buy lots of over-priced imported candies to dole out at the door.  In years passed I’d brought my bass amp out and made scary noises into the microphone from behind the scene while one of my daughters would hand out the candy.  All of us decided to retreat this year, instead.

Riding my bike over the gym and back from the gym I noticed that the neighboring compound was gearing up for trick or treaters as well.  I saw younger parents with the kids and of course the costumes and the kid's excitement is infectious.  I felt old.  My kids no longer cared.  And as I reached our compound and saw more parents out walking around as I had ten years ago, I thought about my civic duty.  Perhaps I should do more for the youth of compound? 

But by the time I reached home I opened the garage quickly, threw my bike in and ran in to close it quickly so I wouldn’t give off the impression that we were hosting a hunted house in with the clutter.  And I closed the lights and made my way inside assuming that any minute the kids would ring the bell.  But they could tell.  We had no Jack O’ Lantern and we had to ghoulish decorations and no one bothered to ring at our darkened home. 

Saturday, 10/27/18