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woke the entire rest of the house.

"We don't appreciate you scaring our kids like that," Betsy Crittenden was saying when I got to the top of the stairs. She, Patty, and Rita Shoemate were standing on our front porch with angry looks on their faces.

"Listen, lady, I wasn't even here last night. I just got home from work an hour ago, so I really don't appreciate you waking me up to yell at me for something I didn't do. Next time, try a phone call at a reasonable hour," Jude said, and stalked away from the door. He pushed past me on the stairs. "I am really sick of this shit," he said under his breath. "If they're not gone in five minutes, I am going to come back down here and finish it." He was absolutely livid. I had never seen him so mad. "Let me know when they're gone."

"Oh, you'll be able to tell," I said grimly and descended the stairs after him. Adena was standing in the front hall with her arms crossed; giving the three women on our front porch what she later called "The Mighty Jew-Girl Stare of Death." Patrick walked up the hall in his boxer shorts and a t-shirt that had a picture of a gingerbread man and the words "Eat Me" on it. Sam was still standing by their bedroom door, rubbing his eyes.

"What's the problem here?" I asked. "You ladies have managed to upset our entire household very early in the morning on our day off, so I would appreciate a swift and satisfactory answer."

"The reason is that my daughter came back to our house in tears last night because you psychos scared the living daylights out of her, that's why," Patty said.

"My kids said that there was blood everywhere, that you came to the door holding a human head," Betsy said.

"Oh, you mean this?" Patrick asked, picking up his "head" off the front hall table. It still had candy in it. "Emily made it. It's hollow, see? It's not real," he said, like it wasn't obvious.

"We know that," Betsy said, frustrated. "We just think that was in incredibly poor taste. There were some very young kids out trick-or-treating last night, and it's inappropriate that you would come to the front door looking like there had been a massacre in this house."

"Although, that wouldn't really surprise us," Rita said, crossing her arms and giving Adena what Adena later described as "The Shiksa Stink-Eye."

I ignored Ritas last comment. "We didn't scare any of the little kids. I was dressed like a gypsy, I gave the little ones candy. We only answered the door scary when it was older kids or teenagers. I'm sorry of

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