On Victory Parades and the Loss of My TV

Dear Mr. OR,

Last night was indeed a most disturbing night. I am now more afraid than I have been in quite some time. You see, last night, all the Beasts in our neighborhood, big and small, got together to show off their strength. My wife, who is often brainwashed by the Beast, had some understanding of what was about to happen and helped me to prepare.

As it turns out every October 31 the Beasts of our neighborhood dress in their conquering uniforms and lead their hosts around the town in a show of strength. They go door to door bringing their mind slaves with them and demand tribute in the form of small sweets from anyone in the neighborhood who does not have a Beast leading them around. It is my understanding that if one fails to pay the tribute then the Beasts will descend en mass and move into the home of the helpless victim.

At first I was somewhat skeptical thinking there could only be a dozen or so Beasts within our community who had managed to outwit their hosts. Why after all we men are a very resilient breed but as the hour grew late I began to become more and more concerned. My wife sent me to the store to buy lots of sweets in order to assure that we would be able to appease all the little monsters. She then busied herself with dressing the Beast in its own victory outfit. I was at first very much against this idea. I mean our Beast has not won. I would not be paraded about the town like the slave of this little demon! Then my wife explained that I would indeed not be paraded around the town but the marauding Beasts may feel the need to move in and help our Beast should it look as though our Beast were not in control. This made great sense to me as the sudden gain of a dozen Beasts attempting to help our Beast out would complicate my life exponentially and so I left my wife to her work and busied myself with the acquiring of sweet morsels.

I arrived home shortly my arms full of bags of candy which I piled high into a large stainless steal bowl. That way should one of the little monsters try to force its way into the house I could use the bowl as a bludgeon and send them back to the road. However; as the hour grew late I began to become very disturbed. A quick look out our window displayed significantly more than a dozen parading Beasts. There were Beasts everywhere walking up and down the streets in packs of fourteen or more. I began to wonder if they segregated themselves into groups in order to disparage the cannibalistic tendency of other Beasts not unlike the herds of Zebra do to help increase their chances of surviving lion attacks.

The first few visits went without incident although as I lowered the bowl to each Beast in turn they removed a gaping handful of sweets and it quickly became apparent that should this trend continue I would not have enough sweets to make it through the evening. As I looked outside and realized the immensity of the number of Beasts patrolling our street who would be moving into my happy home should I run out of sweets I became very concerned and began instantly raiding my house for anything I thought might appease the Beasts and still they kept coming. I gave them all of our sweets, and then the cookies my mother had baked for my wife and I. We then pulled out the Brownies my wife had made that afternoon. Finally I was handing out one pound bags of sugar. Having run out of those the next Beast got my TV set.

And they still kept coming. And so I did the only thing that I could do given the great onslaught. I slammed the door, turned out all of the lights, and ran down into my basement where I hid in the corner and pretended not to be home. It was a long and sleepless night and although none of the Beasts decided to move in they did take great pleasure in ringing our doorbell once every few minutes until nearly sunrise. And so I write to you today as a slightly shaken and very tired Lumpy. I remain always;

Respectfully yours,

The Lumpy