"Trick or Treat" came early this year.

Perhaps I should clarify. While Saturday, October 29 was the designated day for many children's Hallowe'en-themed activities — including costume contests, mall Trick-or-Treats, and the costumed American Diabetes Association Step Out to STOP Diabetes Walk, Mother Nature had other plans for us — plans that included snow shovels, flashlights, streets full of wet, slushy, ice-snow, and not a microwatt of electric power to be had for three towns' radius around us.

The day started innocuously enough with rain. October snow is rare, but not unheard of, in these parts — and snow was indeed predicted for the late afternoon and evening. Some after-dark events were cancelled, others were moved into sheltered areas or indoors. On Friday, we learned our walk would be moved to the sheltered areas inside the TD Bank Ballpark stadium, and its distance shortened.

Unfortunately for us, the snow came early. It started around noon, and started sticking around one in the afternoon. Along with the quick drop in temperatures, the water/sleet/snow clung to power lines with its usual density, and shortly after one, power went out in the shopping center where I'm currently working. We picked up the store by flashlight, turned away customers because we couldn't ring up sales, and when my shift ended at two, I changed into my cycling clothes in near-darkness.

While traffic was unusually light on the way home, the road conditions posed hazards as scary as the usual motorists. Riding road tires through slush is tricky enough without hidden ice patches, and there were many times I had to dismount and walk my bicycle through areas I would have normally pedaled with nary a care. The foot-on-ground time caused ice to clog up my cleats and my pedals, forcing me to "flat-pedal" much of the way home. As I traveled, I observed that all the traffic lights were dark, and there were no house or store lights anywhere on my route home. I arrived soaked through all my layers of weather-protective clothing, caked with salty slush from motor-vehicle wakes, and worst of all, to a house with no power, no heat, and — after the contents of the reservoir cycled through — no hot water.

In those weather conditions, I was in no mood to turn back outside, trek a half-mile to the train station, pray the trains were running, walk a half-mile from the Bridgewater train station to the ballpark, do an event, and then reverse the process — after dark. Fortunately, the event organizers thought along the same lines and postponed the walk to the following week. (Unfortunately for me, the rescheduled event is at a time when I am already promised to be elsewhere — working communications at the New York Marathon.)

From the time I got home until power was restored at 3:30 in the morning, the only heat I had was from the gas stove and oven, and the only light (after sundown) was from flashlights. While it was still light enough to do so, I drank tisanes and hot cocoa to keep warm and tried to catch up on some reading. The cold-weather issues I have with Raynaud's made this a bit tricky; I spent more time huddled under blankets and a hood than I did turning pages. Once the sun went down, reading got even more limited: I find reading by flashlight-light gives me headaches. I would read for a few minutes, then huddle under the blankets and sleep for a bit. The cold and stress (and deliberately limited trips to the refrigerator/freezer) led to a nasty, headachey, low of 69 mg/dl at about 7PM. (Remember, I'm not taking insulin or any diabetes medications; in theory, lows should not be possible. They do happen, though.) I ended up warming up some chicken nuggets by flashlight -- not the healthiest of choices, but a fast warm-up in a still-functioning oven.

Between the cold, the unnatural quiet, and the strange brown cast by light pollution through the stormy sky, it was not easy to sleep — especially with The Other Half not expected home from work until 11PM at the earliest (he finally got home, after several detours, just before midnight). It wasn't until he was safely in the house that I was comfortable changing into sleepwear and moving from the living room sofa into bed.

I was awakened by what seemed like someone shoving a flashlight in my face — in fact, it was the lights coming back on at 3:30 in the morning (we had forgotten to check if the bedroom light switch was turned off). Instead of closing the light and returning to sleep, The Other Half decided we needed to conduct the Chinese Fire Drill of checking every computer, network device, electronic device, telephone line, telephone, and networked entertainment device to make sure we had power, connectivity, and information flowing comme il faut before a quick run-through of e-mail and — after setting the 8AM alarm — finally heading back to bed at 4:00.

As it was, the heat didn't start back up until just after 8:00, and the hot water tap wasn't even lukewarm until about 9:00. Still, we were the lucky ones. One co-worker first got her electricity back at 8:30 that evening; another is still without power (as is the better part of one of the towns on the other side of the shopping center). Public transportation has been understandably spotty in many areas of the state, schools have been (of necessity) closed, and the governor has advised children to complete their trick-or-treating before sundown.

That said, children and adults are going about town dressed in costume, though they seem fewer in number. Since our town has power, I expect many of our children will make their rounds after their parents get home from work. Parents from neighboring towns, who still don't have lights — were running about organizing last-minute parties and activities that did not require electric power, trying to keep their digital-native children from getting bored.

I'm used to the idea of trick-or-treating in a winter coat — it was normal for the Long Island town in which I grew up, and so all my late-October costumes and garb — whether Elizabethan, "Pyrate", or something else — is designed with a warm outerwear component. It's a completely different story for the children, whose costumes are designed to be worn at school, at parties, and in the daylight hours during which we expect them to be going door-to-door.

I hope wherever you are, you and yours make it through this Hallowe'en safe and warm.