You’ll be happy to know that you can continue trick-or-treating indefinitely, so long as you greet each household with “I’m hypoglycemic and my blood sugar is low.” You might worry that one of your neighbors will be a nutritionist and may involuntarily stab you with an insulin needle right there at the door. This is an unlikely scenario. And even if it happens– hey, free insulin!

If you’re still put off by the prospect of post-adolescent candy scavenging, don’t worry. Halloween offers something for everyone: kids, teenagers and adults alike. Everyone except fundamentalist evangelicals.

Halloween is the only holiday where a lack of costume compensates for a lack of costume. “Pantsless Santa” sounds like a pathetic attempt to explain away Uncle Jim’s belligerent yuletide antics when he whips up his special recipe of bourbon and ice cubes. Yet take any Halloween costume, subtract trousers, and watch as you transform into the life of the party! Who would you rather hang out with: Zombie Gaddafi or Risky Business Zombie Gaddafi?

Tort reform is in safe hands.

On Friday I attended a law school costume party, which had an inordinate amount of nubile scholars wearing themed skirts only slightly less revealing than a clown collar. My own pseudo-date sported tights and remarkably little cleavage, but the overall coolness of her wardrobe more than compensated for its modesty. She texted me at the airport with, “Is it okay if I wear a Star Trek uniform to the costume party?” Which means that she either doesn’t know me very well, or she knows me far, far too well.

Fortunately I got the best of both worlds this year: a tantalizing post-grad soiree and a wholesome, family-friendly regional quest for diabetes. It was as a chaperone for trick-or-treating youngsters that I discovered that I am, in fact, an adult.

I’ve been friends with several families from my home parish for close to a decade, and am generally perceived as a good influence on the kiddos despite a few glaring past discrepancies in which I gave them espresso. I find kids hilarious, particularly these kids I’ve watched grow up, so I was more than happy to spend Halloween dressed as a doctor, alternately playing tag, drinking cider, or showing them cool John Travolta dance moves.

For children, however, the keystone of Halloween is candy collection and candy consumption. And this is accomplished by trick-or-treat excursions throughout the neighborhood.

And what a neighborhood! A great advantage of childhood in Oklahoma is that you are rarely more than a single Frisbee toss from some kind of livestock. So one family dressed their children up as cowboys, then threw in a couple of ponies as accessories. Not way out in the country, mind you. In a regular suburb with fire hydrants and parking regulations and ordinances about the legal size of a mailbox. Residents would hear clop-clop-clop and ding-dong!, then open their door to encounter miniature sheriffs and two perplexed horses, who would root through candy bowls in search of Butterfingers and carrots, respectively.

I wandered from family cluster to family cluster until my little friend Cooper spotted me. Let me establish what a Halloween badass Cooper is. Not only did he chart out the most efficient candy routes beforehand, he selected as his own trick-or-treat buddy his cousin with peanut allergies, so that at the end of the evening Cooper would by default receive every single verboten sweet. I’m very proud of that kid.

Once he sighted me he grabbed his cousin by the backpack and started hoofing it down the sidewalk. “Hey Andrew!” he said. “Let’s go!”

“Whoa, wait a minute, Coop. Shouldn’t we wait on your dad before we take off?”

“It’s okay,” he assured me. “We just have to have an adult with us.”

I glanced around absently, looking around for one. Then jerked my head sideways as the full impact of the statement hit. “You mean me?” The notion was scarcely comprehensible.

Yet Cooper meant exactly me. Small children more or less equate height with maturity, so in Cooper’s mind I’m a bona fide grownup.

Here’s the eery thing: Cooper was right. Seconds after proclaiming me an adult, the kid stirred hitherto unknown reserves of avuncular nettle within: “Heyheyheyhey! Look BOTH WAYS, Cooper! Cooper, lo– STOP! STOP!” and “Did you say ‘thank you’ to the lady for the Milk Duds? Because that’s what we say.”

I nearly advised him on what candy bars have better fiber content, which keeps you regular, but was so abjectly horrified at this geezerly impulse that I clamped my mouth shut and snatched a Snickers out of his cousin’s pale. (Don’t judge me– the kid has a peanut allergy. I probably saved his life. Also, peanuts are a good source of fiber.)

A fine evening had by all, even if it heralded my reluctant entry into grownupdom. But I feel that, overall, I’m striking a good balance between maturity and reckless abandonment. That self-assessment was reinforced by an award I was given at the end of the evening.

Shortly before leaving, Cooper escorted me aside and furtively handed me a Chinese food takeway box. Spirited away inside were handfuls of precious, precious candy. And a note, which I may very well frame:

I'm An Adult, Now Gimme Candy