Just skip that house with the purse gum, you'll only scrape your knee

Last year, at my old house in Ames, I don't think I had more than 20 trick-or-treaters on Halloween. It was sort of a down year, but not too far off the average for the four Halloweens we lived there. It wasn't a neighborhood with a lot of kids, but it was fairly residential. Twenty seemed about right.

Now I live in a much more family-oriented neighborhood in Des Moines. So I knew that I would probably have more trick-or-treaters this year. I loaded up last week, figuring we could always just eat the leftover candy. "We've got plenty of candy over here," I bragged to my neighbors yesterday afternoon as we discussed football and chased my neighbor Joe's rambunctious cats out of my garage. "You can send them over here; we'll get it covered."

I figure I started the evening with 200 treats. Trick-or-treating began at 6, and I didn' t have a knock at the door until 6:15. We've got plenty of candy, I thought, kicking back in my chair with the Opinion pages of the Sunday Register. A few more kids started coming...okay, we'll go through a good chunk of it...and before I knew it I was listening to a nonstop barrage of jokes (a Des Moines tradition -- you must tell a joke to receive candy on "Beggar's Night") and watching the candy bowl drain down to the least desirable items. My husband, who was in the family room watching Dogma on Comedy Central while swearing in the general direction of a do-it-yourself project, was no help. He just watched me dart from the front door back to the kitchen, using every possible 10-second lull in the action to scan our cupboards for candy or candy-type food products. "Could I hand out marshmallows?" I asked him as he spilled rubber cement in the carpet. "How about granola bars? Do kids like granola bars?" I thought I had some gum in my purse.

Sadly, at 7:20 p.m., I threw in the towel and turned off the front-stoop light of surrender. The kids had eaten me, and my Kit-Kat bars, alive. I had no trick-or-treating game at all. I'd better start my next year's trick-or-treat candy savings fund now.

I did, however, enjoy seeing the costumes and hearing the jokes. My very first trick-or-treater was a three-foot-tall black boy dressed as Napoleon Dynamite, which I found hilarious. And by far the most popular joke of the year was: "Why didn't the skeleton cross the road? -- Because he didn't have the guts." I did not enjoy the snotty 10-year-old who chewed me out because "our steps were too steep" and caused her sister to fall and scrape her knee. All I could do was offer the sister a Band-Aid while her older sib proceeded to berate me. Gee, I hope I didn't act like that when I was 10.

Oh yeah, and I still want to know what a 2-year-old is going to do with Hot Tamales.

Damn you, magical nachos, for toying with my emotions

The nachos hath forsaken us.

So I have this friend, Shane. He has superhuman metabolism, it seems, because he's not the slightest bit chubby despite eating like Godzilla most of the time. I attended the Iowa State vs. Missouri football game with him this weekend, and attention: It was actually Shane's fault ISU lost the game. Shane sends his apologies to the Cyclone faithful.

Why can this loss be blamed on Shane? You see, all through the first half he was extolling the wonderfulness of Missouri's concession stand nachos. He hadn't tasted them, but he saw them and they were available with Philly cheesesteak meat, he informed me. He spent most of the first half debating about whether or not to purchase said nachos. Finally, toward the beginning of the third quarter he relented and returned to Sec. A, Row 64 with a gigantic plate.

While Shane was purchasing the nachos, Cyclone Nik Moser made an interception that set up ISU's go-ahead touchdown. Soon thereafter it was Tigers 14, Nachos 17. All hail the nachos. I partook of the nachos, feeling their golden energy coat my stomach as Iowa State made play after play, dominating the line of scrimmage and shutting down the Mizzou offense. "I knew I should have bought these nachos," Shane gloated, spraying chip residue on the senior citizens in front of us as he cheered for another ISU touchdown. "It's gotta be the nachos." Before long it was Nachos 24, Missouri 14. No one could stop the power of the nachos.

That is, until Shane got selfish. His platter abused and wilted, he stared with defeat at the nacho remains -- quite a few smothered chips buried under a large pile of jalapenos. Bits of Philly cheesesteak meat were scattered randomly across the styrofoam. Being a slightly bigger Cyclone fan than nacho enthusiast, Shane wanted to turn his full attention to cheering.

So he decided to (gasp!) abandon the nachos. Yes, that's right: He threw them in the trash.

You don't need me to tell you that the moment Shane threw away the magical nachos of wealth and prosperity was the moment that Missouri and its backup freshman quarterback started moving the ball and the refs started screwing over Iowa State. Final score: Missouri 27, Iowa State and the Nachos 24.

One will never know why these cruel nachos toyed with our emotions for so long, but we will be left to always wonder what might have been.

Corn for your corns

What's up with Gov. Vilsack lately and his obsession with corn socks? I think I've heard about this from him like eleventy bajillion times, including a conference I attended at which he spoke on Friday.

Not that corn socks don't rule, of course. Coming this spring, you can buy them from a company called Fox River Mills in Osage. According to the Register, "the socks...look like any typical pair. They're white, not yellow. They don't smell like popcorn — no matter how hot your feet get while wearing them."

Good to know.