A Trick-or-Treat Outing

11 year-old Sam was skipping along ahead in her pink princess costume. Little four-year old Johnny was tripping along, too busy creating a new Batman mask out of chocolate to pay attention to where he was going. Seven-year old Lisa kept trying to capture Sam with her Wonder Woman lasso, hitting her in the head instead. Sam turned and complained that a beautiful princess would never be "accompanied by such impudent children." She had just learned the phrase "impudent children" by looking up thesaurus entries for the word "brat" on her iPhone.

Mom followed along in the car, parking at each house as the kids skipped and tripped along. She would yell out the window at them to stop "eating the candy until we get home," stop "hitting your sister with that little rope," and stop "being such a snob." It didn't seem to help. After receiving a big handful of candy at the next house, Johnny immediately dug in and began to stuff his little face.

That was it. Mom had enough. She left the car parked, and got out.

"We're going home! Get in the car!"

"But mom, we've only gone to 50 houses!" Johnny whined.

"Give me that!" she shouted as she grabbed Johnny's bag of candy. "I said get in!"

The kids slowly crawled into the car and hung their heads. Johnny started burbling.

"Even your crying is disgusting," Lisa said to Johnny, dramatically turning her head away from him.

"Stop talking. Just stop. Now." Mom just wanted some peace.

Sam decided that she was now the only mature person in the car, and it was her turn to take over. She took off her tiara and set it in her lap. "We need to calm down and …"

Mom grabbed the tiara and threw it out the window. Sam stared at her mother with a surprised look. Mom pulled over and dropped her head onto the steering wheel, inadvertently honking the horn. Everyone jumped.

"I'm sorry. But you kids need to listen. I get angry because what I'm saying is for your own good, and when you don't listen, it makes me crazy. Johnny, if you don't stop eating all that candy, you're going to have to have your stomach pumped."

Johnny stopped burbling and gasped, eyes bulging. "Does that mean I'll become a bloated dead body?"

His sisters both gasped in disgust.

"Oh my God, sweaty, where do you get these things? How do you even know about bloated dead things?"

"Timmy showed me a Halloween movie, and they said the dead man was fat because he was bloated, then white gooey stuff started spewing out and..."

"Stop! Honey, I don't ever want you hanging out with Timmy again. That kid has problems. He'll probably become a criminal. You don't want to hang around criminals. They will steal all your candy."

"Then he'll be helping me, right? He would be keeping my stomach from being bloated out."

Sam thought she would help her brother understand that there was nothing to fear. "They pump stuff out when they pump your stomach, not in. The point is to get all the bad stuff out so you don't keel over."

Johnny's eyes bulged even more. "So I'm really gonna die if I don't get my stomach bloated?"

"Sam, please stop trying to fix everything. Johnny, you aren't going to need to have your stomach pumped, and you aren't going to die. It's just that your stomach is going to be very upset after eating so much candy. The remark about having your stomach pumped was just a figure of speech. Now everyone, please settle down, and we'll go home and have some dinner."

Sam jumped out of the car.

"Where do you think your going?" Mom yelled.

Sam picked up her tiara and jumped back in the car. "I thought everything was back to normal, which means I get to be a princess again," Sam said as she put the tiara back on her head.

Mom started the car back up and drove home. The kids sat quietly during the drive.