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You just may be a Halloween hater if:

• Seeing your neighbors' houses dripping in orange lights, life-sized scarecrows and inflatable witches, you give in to the pressure and plunk a half-price, festering pumpkin on your front step on Oct. 30. And you deeply resent spending the buck fifty.

• Your kids' store-bought, lead-based, choking hazard, 100% artificially-dyed, plastic costumes come with a personalized lecture from David Suzuki. And you don't flinch.

• On Halloween night, you turn off your lights at 6:15 p.m. and gorge on Ruffles chips and Crispy Crunch bars. Cry me a river, tardy goblins.

• You buy your candy at the Dollar Store and it contains names like: Teeth- Manglers, Glucose Gut Rot and Dextrose Death. And you deeply resent spending the buck fifty.

• When you spot a van from another neighborhood dropping off hordes of sweaty, hulking superheroes, you give them canned ravioli. Opened.Upside down.

• You 'unfriend' anyone on Facebook who makes homemade costumes and uploads photos. If they say stuff like "I just whipped this up before breakfast! Soooo easy! lol" or "Ta da! Check out little Hunter's and my matching costumes!" 'unfollow' their blog, too. They asked for it.

• You bring a mickey with you when you take your kids door to door. And let's just say it doesn't always end well. Don't judge me.

• When the doorbell rings for the 7 millionth time while you try to watch an episode of "Mad Men," you simply remove the doorbell's battery. With a sledge hammer. In front of the little costumed beggars.

• When a brain-fried four-year old trick-or-treater points at the makeshift spider web you spent five endless minutes manipulating with your bare hands in the cold and asks, "What's that?" you smile really, really wide, bend down so you're eye to eye and say, "You wanna see how it feels against your face, sweetie? Because I swear to God I can make that happen in a hurry!"

• The sight of Martha Stewart sneering from a magazine cover, posed with a montage of symmetrical, laser beam-carved pumpkins and Gummi-worm stew inside her Beetlejuice-themed grand room, holding a sign saying: "Too bad you can't do this sh**. Loser." brings you right back to the anger phase you've worked so hard to get beyond.

**Please note: The opinions in this article do not reflect those of the writer. She quite likes the jaundiced look when she wears orange and black; she goes crazy for dressing up in a French maid costume; and she adores reminding unsocialised little witches and goblins to say "please" and "thank you."

- Colleen Landry

Colleen Landry has been writing since she was a beautiful and precocious child weaving tales of magic mushrooms turtles and princesses. Now a fully grown (ish) adult, her writing offers very little magic but lots of laughs. Colleen thinks laughing at others life's stages is healing and infectious. She has been published in Canadian Living magazine and the Globe and Mail, as well as various local newspapers. Colleen also teaches high school writing in an online environment where discipline is as simple as 'Ctrl' 'Alt' 'Delete.' She is married and has two teenage sons who eat even while asleep. Follow her on Twitter @LandryColleen and enjoy her blog at https://onehotflashinmama. wordpress.com.