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But whoever created that thing set the volume too high, and there's no way to turn it down. You have to wait for the witch to go through its whole routine, which is like two minutes long. We hung it out over the front porch last year, but little kids were too scared of the thing, and the only trick-or-treaters we had were the teenagers who came by after 10 p.m. The day after Halloween, Dad put the witch on a shelf in the furnace room in the basement, and that's where it's been ever since. But that doesn't mean it's stopped causing PROBLEMS.

The witch is SUPER sensitive to sound, and sometimes the slightest noise will set it off, even if the noise is on a different floor. CACKLE CACKLE CACKLE CACKLE CACKLE To make matters WORSE, the witch seems to have a mind of its own, and sometimes it'll go off randomly even if no one makes a PEEP. I've had at least two sleepovers end early because of that thing. CACKLE CACKLE CACKLE CACKLE CACKLE

I've been trying all year to convince Mom and Dad to throw the witch away, but Dad says it's just a plastic toy and I need to stop being such a scaredy-cat. But I guess Mom got sick of the witch randomly going off all the time, and a few weeks ago she told Dad to go downstairs and take the batteries out, which he did. And what happened NEXT is the reason I haven't been in the furnace room ever since. CACKLE CACKLE CACKLE CACKLE CACKLE What stinks is that all my old Halloween costumes are down in the furnace room. So unless Mom's willing to spring for something NEW, I guess I'm not going trick-or-treating this year.

Sunday Well, all the hard work we put into decorating for Halloween yesterday got wiped out. A bunch of geese got at the jack-o'-lanterns in the middle of the night and made a HUGE mess. Every fall, geese flying south for the winter make a pit stop in our town and stick around for a few weeks before heading back out. Usually they poop all over the soccer field at the town park, but other than that they're pretty harmless. For some reason, though, this year they're SUPER aggressive toward people.

For the past few weeks, me and Rowley have been getting ambushed just about every day on our walk home from school. HONK! And the geese aren't just going after KIDS, either. Whenever Dad goes out to get the mail, he's gotta arm himself for battle. Dad wants to call Animal Control to clear the geese off our street, but Mom won't let him.

She says geese have been flocking to these parts for thousands of years, and if anything WE'RE the ones intruding on THEIR lives. I'm personally fine with animals, as long as they keep their distance. But I think if we don't draw a line somewhere, we're just headed for trouble. My science teacher said that 40,000 years ago, dogs used to be wild animals, just like wolves. But then I guess they saw our warm fires and cozy caves and wanted to get in on the action. So they wagged their tails and did a few tricks and that's all it took.