We didn’t really have any plans for Halloween last year. I guess you could blame it on a lack of enthusiasm. However, I did have that need for candy. For some reason, Zach is always a willing participant in my shenanigans, so when I suggested we go trick or treating disguised as children, he did not protest. My plan was simple—we needed masks to cover our identity, a few properly placed pillows to hide my age-induced aspects, and a couple of pillowcases to hold our loot.

We put on our costumes, and right away I noticed some flaws. First of all, Zach needed gloves. No one was going to give candy to a “kid” with old man hands, and, of course, in my case, the more obvious: bad pillow placement. Once all was resolved we headed out. As we walked down the street we saw people we knew, and, much to our surprise, they had no clue that it was us. That was my first hint that we might actually get away with it.

First, we decided to try out our costumes at Red Mountain Foods. Like a charm, Barry handed us our treats and commented on our scary costumes. It was working. Second house in, Zach got questioned about his costume. I was sure we were done. Shut down before we really got started, but like a champ he used his best tenth grader voice, and we proceeded on. We went from house to house collecting chocolates, candies, and apples (not cool, by the way), with no one being the wiser. I was drunk with power.

Then Zach started walking slower and hanging back while I collected candy from our adult friends. The guilt was getting to him. Sucker. After a pep talk we collected a few more treats and decided to head back home.

Despite being heckled and almost beaten up by a group of high school kids, we managed to get home with our candy. There are a few bonuses to being a 38- or 40-year-old trick or treater: for one, there is no mom or dad doing the candy check and deciding that all the Almond Joys “might” be bad; for another, we could eat as much as we wanted (and we did).

I don’t know why we got away with it. Maybe the folks of Patagonia are just used to overgrown kids trick or treating. It might be that we are short. Either way we enjoyed our candy.

Lately, I have been thinking about how we can manipulate that Santa situation.