Good evening, Sheezy Sheezsters, Goofy Gamers, Self-idolizing Artists, and Buoyant Flamboyantees. And everyone else, too.

Today began with a rough start in the form of uncontrollable sobbing at 2am. Then, another bout of the demons hit me an hour into my shift at work, around 11am. I was able to confide in a dear friend over text, which really did help a lot. I somehow managed to cry myself into getting a nosebleed, which has never happened to me in such a way before, and I can only blame the SpooOooOoky. Or severe stress. But it was probably the spooky.

Then the rollercoaster begins, as it was seemingly just as I regained my composure from my emotional break earlier in the day that I was ushered in for my selected role of this most haunted of evenings: The shopping district I worked at was preparing to host a door-to-door face-to-face heart-to-heart trick-or-treat. And what better opportunity than this to show off my fursuit? The head, at least, as I needed opposable thumbs for handing out candy. My suit has a pretty menacing snarl, which is absolutely fantastic, because it means that I can genuinely scare the daylights out of these intrepid business-shambling candy-hoarding hooligan toddlers.

Many children were sent staggering backwards, clutching to the legs of their custodians upon catching visage of my snarling maw. Once my target was sighted, I began tilting my head in such a creepy fashion so as to enhance the terror faced by these toddlers. The next part of my trick unfolded so perfectly every time: The parents began to encourage the kid, laughing softly in sympathy and assuring them that I was not real, I was just a person in a costume. So it was here that I quit my wriggling and begin to offer them a small piece of candy, just small enough to fit in their tiny hands, and I watched each time as the kid battled against their own instinct, their eyes yearning to flee to safety and their tiny glow-up squeaky buzz-lightyear boots taking them, as if against their own will, further and further towards the grinning, snarling, red-eyed beast that was me, dangling a sweet treat in front of them as if luring them into their demise.

Except demise there was none, for this is only the nature of Halloween! Although there were a few poor small ones who couldn't muster the courage to face the beast, even when promised a sugary treat, even when reassured by their most trusted guardians... Most of our lovely little sticky-fingered protagonists came out stronger today than they began. It's fascinating to me to see such clear displays of varying personalities, levels of courage, and varieties in anxieties displayed even by children who have only been on this Earth for a meager handful of years. While some trembled and wailed in terror, many more came gleefully up to me, either demanding candy in their sugar-hyped craze, or easily gushing to me about how much they like my costume, asking me, what are you, a fox? A rainbow fox? Not a monster, not to them. But to some.

I love Halloween even more now that I'm an adult.