Things that go bump

Since Hallowe'en is the vestigial tail of a no-longer-mainstream religious cosmology, and we coyotes play (ahem) a small role in one or two pre-Christian religious systems ourselves, we're totally down with All Hallows Eve. Especially the chocolate.

What's not to like? Acceptable scariness. A chance to live somebody else's (quite possibly libidinous) life for a few hours. Terminally cute little satanists with tiny plastic pumpkins, teenagers armed with their parents' body pillowcases, thingies in strangely realistic looking dog costumes, and other stuff that goes bump in the night, romp about the neighbourhood, to knock on doors and hit up complete strangers for candy, which, if they are lucky, is not those cheap n' nasty, orange 'n black-wrapped things that epoxy themselves to the roof of your mouth and cause you to howl mournfully and make goofy-looking chewy motions until they finally dissolve and leave cankers on your tongue. I digress.

But we mustn't forget origins. History is important. I am semi-reliably informed that Hallowe'en descends from Samhain, the Gaelic harvest festival that marks the Celtic new year. I mean, before bumptious johnny-come-lately churches crashed the Hallowe'en party, appropriating it and Frankensteining it to shoehorn it into their own belief systems to attract new fans. (You thought such blatant campaign tricks were more modern, I bet...) You could look it up. A couple of popes named Gregory were involved, apparently. And lemurs. Cool! Oh, wait. Not that kind of lemurs.

Ah, Wikipedia - is there anything more useful to a coyote seeking backup and bafflement potential for his side - any side - in a debate?

Now where the, ummm, Hell was I? Oh, yeah. It's Hallowe'en. Gimme chocolate!