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There are two kinds of people: those who throw things away and those who gather stuff. It’s been no secret at ni.vu.ni.connu that my beau is a gatherer (remember the t-shirt episode?). What’s worse, he’s the romantic gatherer type.

We’re at the restaurant one night this week and we’re waiting for the bill. His small wallet is sitting on the table. It has a plastic window showing his bling (fancy transit pass) so I pull it out to look at it.

A small piece of sea shell falls out of the wallet.

-« What’s that? »
-« Some piece of shell from the beach, I think. I just thought the colours were beautiful. »

I look at the small, triangular shell. I realize it’s a piece of a mussel.

-« Baby, this is a mussel shell. You didn’t get this from the beach. »
-« I didn’t? »
-« No, you got it out of my seafood soup at the fast-food noodle joint last Friday. »
-« Oh. That’s right. »

I look at him with my « you silly » air.

-« But isn’t it beautiful? Look at all the colours! »

I’m not at the Yulblog gathering tonight because I’ve got a big deadline for Monday. Work, work, work.

So I’m not at the bar La Cabane and yet, it’s a little bit as if I were there. You see, Lightspeedchick’s cell phone seems to have magically dialed my number without her realizing it and now I can hear conversations going on.

If she starts talking about me, this could mean trouble.

If she brings back a date home tonight, I might have a great MP3 file for you tomorrow.

If someone who’s at La Cabane right now reads this, could you warn Lightspeechick and save a friendship?

(You’ll have to forgive me. I’m working on a teenager movie and I’m getting typical teenage paranoia.)

17h30: First kids ring the doorbell. We’re very generous with the candy.

18h15: A 14-year-old pimp (huge fur jacket and bling) shows up with a 13 year-old ho (bad makeup, tiny skirt). And to think that I made fun of the pimp costume yesterday, believing no one would actually dress as a pimp. « Trick or treat » suddenly took a whole other meaning.

18h30 The doorbell rings. I open the door. A tiny kid dressed as Batman looks at me and says: « Who are YOU? »

18h35: I see a 3-year-old dressed as a clown jump in place with excitement as I’m coming to open the door. « How cute », I think. Turns out he really, really needed to pee. We let him and his mom use the restroom and when he comes out, he yells: « Where’s my candy? »

18h45: A lovely unicorn trips on the entrance carpet and almost lands in the box of treats. I remember that our house insurance payment is late.

18h46: The doorbell keeps ringing and we’re worried we’re going to run out of candy, so we get less generous with the portions.

19h15: A 13 year-old prisoner comes in the house, takes a long look around and says: « Love the house. Love the concept. » She was the third teenager to make a positive comment about our place. I didn’t know kids were into house design so much these days.

19h20: Blork starts eating the candy. I get mad at him.

19h25: I start putting all the Mars bars aside for my personal use.

19h32: A kid actually says « trick or treat » in English, which makes the man who thinks he’s the only anglo in Longueuil very happy.

19h40: The flow of kids starts slowing down and the night is nice and warm so Blork and I decide to sit on the front steps, eating candy. (Starburst sucks. Yuk.) For the first time in the two years we’ve lived here, the neighborhood really feels alive at night. It’s nice to see so many people on the street, walking around. « See », I tell Blork, « the suburbs are not all about cars and Walmarts. »

19h41: A mini van pulls up. A ninja jumps out, runs up to our house, gets candy, runs back to the van which drives to the next house. We consider putting up a drive-through window for Halloween next year.

19h46: A 16-month-old girl dressed as a pumpkin walks around traumatized, afraid to come near our house, repeating the same words: « The wolf. The wolf ». (The horror. The horror.) Her father explains to me that a neighbor dressed as a wolf just scared the hell out of the kid. She’ll need years of therapy so we give her lots of candy to compensate. She’ll probably become bulimic.

19h59: The doorbell is no longer ringing. Blork is back at the computer, eating Hershey kisses. I turn off the strobe light we had installed to attrack kids and realize that it’s made me sick to my stomach – or was it the candy? I consider getting back to work on the screenplay so I can be justified to eat one more Mars bar (A Mars bar a day at work, rest or play). I decide against working but eat the Mars bar anyway. (They were tiny ones!)