Google Image Result: “Funny Halloween Costume”

The Pix stores on Division and Williams will be giving away free chocolate tonight to anyone in costume, starting at 5 pm (“caramel almond truffles,” the Division store told me when I called). So if you’re “too old” or “too big” to trick or treat in the neighborhoods, don’t let the sizeists/ageists get you down: Pix has what you need. Kids welcome too, presumably.

Speaking of neighborhoods, when I was a kid in the ‘burbs, we always headed to Bull Mountain to score king-sized candy bars from the rich folks. What are the best Portland neighborhoods to trick-or-treat in? This is my first Halloween in Buckman, is anyone going to come to my house?

And for more on trick-or-treating, and how the candy lobby has smeared their sticky fingers on the very time/space fabric of our reality, check out this post from the Times’ City Room blog:

City Room was convinced that the conspiracy theory that Halloween was a critical part of the Congressional debate to extend daylight saving time was one of those questionable Halloween myths, like razors in apples or pins in candy.

Not so. City Room should learn never to underestimate the weirdness of the city to our south. Turns out, senators were truly concerned about that extra hour of daylight and its impact on children’s pedestrian safety, going so far as to propose a Halloween Safety Act (various studies show that kids are significantly more likely to hit and killed on Halloween than any other day).

The candy lobby also played a significant role in pushing Halloween into daylight saving time, believing that extra hour of trick-or-treating in daylight would spur more candy sales but arguing that it would decrease deaths, according to Michael Downing, the author of the Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time, an amusing book about the myths and realities behind daylight saving time.