Now Witch Is It?

This year, think twice before removing your Halloween decorations with nobody home. Do not let what accidentally happened to me last year happen to you.

Afraid of heights, my wobbly knees climbed the 12-foot aluminum ladder to the Palladian window facing the front of our house. I boarded the wooden ledge then dismantled the life-size witch from her decorative perch. As I began to broom sweep the cleared landing, my wife pulled into the driveway a tad too deliberately for her customary lead foot.

I peered out the arched window and into the cool crisp air of a November night. With the chandelier lights blaring through the foyer of an otherwise quiet and dark house, my illuminated presence was there for all to see. I must have loomed bigger than the full moon that painted ET’s silhouette on that famous bicycle ride. With the broom swinging in my hands and my loose fitting pants begging for a belt, I must have not looked any better situated than an extraterrestrial on a bike.

Leaving the car, my stepson Jimmy wisecracked, “Now that is a scarier sight than the witch he took down.”