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Some things you just have to live with

Some things you just have to live with.

This reality of life occurred to me when weird weather prompted a change in Halloween trick-or-treating in many communities, including Richmond.

Instead of Halloween candy collecting being on Thursday, Oct. 31, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., it’s been switched to today, Nov. 3, from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in some places, including Steubenville, Mingo Junction, Wintersville and elsewhere.

When it comes to critical decisions our communities make, it’s not budgets, road repairs or water rates, we sometimes joke — it’s when will trick-or-treat hours be.

An understandable change, the move just the same has posed a clear and present danger for me.

Halloween candy that was all bagged and ready to go and should have been long gone by now has instead lingered in my midst in these great big plastic pumpkin bowls, tempting me to have a little taste here, a little taste there, another little sample, perhaps just one more quality assurance testing for the good of the cause.

My resistance wanes with every glance of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, with every suggestion that a Snicker’s bar lurks in a black cat Halloween treat baggie in the company of malted milk balls and Mr. Goodbars.

Lord help me.

The up side, however, in this delay causing the supply to become slightly diminished, depending on who wins the battle — my sweet tooth or my willpower — is that Halloween candy is officially on sale now.

That I can live with.

We have a hard, fast rule in our house when it comes to buying Halloween candy: Buy candy that you like. Chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate. The more nuts the better.

That way, if there’s candy left over, it’s candy that you’ll eat.

That sounds good and rational and reasonable, but not really. Extra candy that’s extra good is extra easy to eat and extra hard to part with and give away at the office or anywhere else in the days following official trick-or-treating.

The presence of leftover goodies contributes to the downward healthy eating spiral that are part of the coming holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas, the observances of which hopefully won’t be changed because of the weather.

Hopefully today, the stash of Halloween candy I have will make its way to other people’s homes and stomachs.

As I’m writing this, I’m remembering we have to move the clocks back an hour so today means daylight saving time ends.

And that could be bad, considering I’ll have an extra hour, an additional 60 minutes to eat any leftover Halloween candy.

My sweet tooth is likely the only thing about to get a workout.

Some things you just have to live with.

(Kiaski, a resident of Richmond, is a staff columnist and community editor for the Herald-Star and The Weirton Daily Times. She can be contacted atjkiaski@heraldstaronline.com.)

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