Is there a sillier "holiday" than Halloween? Knocking on strangers doors for candy? Or a trick? (What exactly constitutes a "trick," anyway?) Makes the belated celebration of the birth of "the son of God" by going into debt look sensible!

Does anyone actually go trick-or-treating anymore? Here in the City, at least? Rumors - urban legends? - of gang initiations and other craziness taking place tonight have changed our plans so now we're hitting the Museum of Natural History for "loads of Halloween fun, including trick-or-treating, live performances, craft activities, roaming characters, and more!" Sounds like fun, if disturbingly suburban.

Isaac has a cool Frankenstein costume and India will be Blue (as in Blue's Clues). I wanted Isaac to be Batman but they didn't have any costumes in his size. Or so Salomé claimed. Hmm...

This is their first Halloween so it'll be interesting to see how they react to it. So many of these things end up like weddings where it's more about the parents than the kids, I hope they have a good time.

Halloween, 1989, found me in a $200 Batman costume, sweating in the heavy latex mask, at one of the lamest parties I've ever been to in my life, high school included. Friends of my father's, I was the youngest one there by at least 10 years and hadn't yet become a drinker so I was bored out of my mind.

The most fun I had with that costume was standing in my living room window in Staten Island with the lights off and spreading my cape whenever someone walked by. Dork!

Halloween, 1999, we went to a co-worker's house party, complete with rooftop barbeque. I wore a pair of my Army fatigues and crazy makeup and went as a zombie, of sorts. Salomé dressed in all-black and we called her negativity. The party was okay but kind of pointless from a costume perspective. Like with High School reunions, I think Hollywood has given me some skewed expectations of Halloween parties.

If tonight were a movie, the museum displays would come to life and we'd have to battle reanimated dinosaurs, revenge-seeking Haida and Bella Coola, and that big-ass blue whale that hangs from the ceiling. The climax would take place in the Planetarium which turns out to be a portal to the Negative Zone from which hordes of demonic gnomes resembling Dubya make a push to conquer our world. I would find my old Batman costume in a maintenance room and ultimately save the day, but only after letting the Bella Coola kill off all of the Upper Eastsiders and their spoiled kids.

Trick?

Or treat?