My house is haunted!

It makes sharp cracking noises, which I find very upsetting. I'll be snoozing peacefully on the couch or my bed in the living room, or sometimes just on the living room floor, and all of a sudden--SNAP! I come to attention pretty fast. It happens a lot if I'm in M and J's room, too.

M says the house is not haunted. It's just that the wooden frame joints and siding creak when the sun heats them up. He says it's worse this time of year because the sun appears south of the equator and beats down more on the living room and the master bedroom.

But I think he's pumping a little sunshine of his own. This place is H-A-U-N-T-E-D. Those snaps and pops are the ghosts of Animal Control officers stepping on twigs as they try to sneak up on me.

"What about that noise that comes from the utility room every morning and evening?" I ask him. "The sun doesn't hit there."

"That's the water heater clicking on and off," he replies. "It's on a timer."

I'll let him believe that if it makes him feel better. But after about the second or third SNAP! from whatever alleged source, I head for my other bed, which is in J's office. It's darker and cooler in there anyway.

M says that this would be an appropriate time of year for the place to have ghosts, though, because tonight is Halloween. He says that lots of neighborhood kids--and even kids from other neighborhoods--will dress up as ghosts and goblins and witches and maybe other stuff like ballerinas or zombies or George W. Bush, and that starting around suppertime they'll go from house to house knocking on doors, yelling "Trick or treat! Smell my feet! Give me something good to eat!" Then if you don't give them a candy treat, they might play a mean trick on you.

"Like what?" I want to know.

"Like throw eggs at your car or TP your house or write on the screens with soap."

"Will they really do that?" I can imagine myself sitting at the living room window all evening, warding off the little buggers by barking and scaring the bejeezus out of them, letting them know that they can just take their shenanigans elsewhere.

"Probably not," he says. "We're not participating, anyway. You'd scare the bejeezus out of them as they came up the driveway. And besides, candy is expensive and the sugar will rot their teeth and give them diabetes."

So the treat turns out to be its own trick. How cool is that?

I ask how they'll know not to stop here, and he says we'll leave the porch light off. That's the signal we're not doing Trick or Treat. But I think I'll still sit at the window so I can bark at them if they get too close. Or maybe I'll just bark at them anyway.

When M was boarding Arlo at our cats' vet last week, he took these pictures of a couple of dogs (fake ones, not real ones) dressed in Halloween costumes. I'll admit they look pretty neat, but I don't think I'd like to get all gussied up like that. If you've followed this blog for a while, you know I prefer to go nekkid!

Hi-yo Halloween, everybody!