So we got “Boo’d” this week.

If you haven’t experienced this pre-Halloween phenomenon, it goes a little something like this….

You’ll be sitting there, one dark October evening, hanging out after dinner, and the doorbell will ring. At first you wonder, “Oh! Is that the UPS man with the new brown suede boots I ordered online!?” You run to the door, peer out the window, hoping… but alas, no sign of the driver bounding back across the front yard, or the familiar “whirr” of the gigantic brown truck pulling away. But, what’s this? A festive little orange and black bag sitting on the front stoop with a note?!

And that’s how it happens…you are perhaps chosen by fate, the higher-ups of Halloween, the goblins of gifting…and a super fun neighbor. We quickly opened the door and felt the crisp fall air, filled with anticipation – what was inside the little bag?! The attached note declared it to be true! We’d been Boo’d!

The kids went bananas. It was adorable. Stickers. Treats. A cute drawing of a bat and a note explaining that we now have to put a sign on our door (copy enclosed in the bag) to show our ‘hood that we’d been Boo’d. This safety measure, I presume, was created to ensure that one lucky family does not get Boo’d 14 times. Smart, those people behind the scenes at Boo.

The package also contained a note explaining how we must now secretly Boo two more friends in our general area of residence.

Hmm…So here’s the thing, as my children giddily searched for clues as to who the bag was from -“Mom! That kind of looks like Tyler’s writing!” – and simultaneously launched into negotiations over “can we PLEASE have a chocolate peanut butter pumpkin?,”…a thought crossed my mind. A thought that was admittedly as dark and gloomy as the attic of a haunted house…

Awww, man.

Now I have to schelp around tomorrow afternoon, buy bags, buy candy (knowing full well that I will eat half a bag of candy corn in the process as I have no willpower when it comes to fall-colored nuggets of sugar). Then, amidst promised Wii time, homework, dinner and reading, I will have to get the kids to make cards, choose a friend to Boo, arrange for a stealth drop off in the dark of the night and make sure that our Boo sign stays adhered to the front door until, I’m guessing, 10/31, midnight EST.

Then I felt guilty about my Halloween grinchy attitude.

As we drove to school the next day, discussing our final plans for the Boo Op – such as how fast we’ll run after we ring the bell, etc., we also look at other houses around us to see who’s already been Boo’d. Turns out the cute ghostly face on the 8 ½ x 11 paper is spotted on several doors, not counting the one that turned out to be a building permit on a lovely Cape expansion.

After school we headed to the local CVS for shopping. My sweet, sweet, children then proceeded to, in a span of 8 seconds while I was scoping out Halloween stickers, hit the ”on” button on every single battery light-up ghost in the store. Btw – hey lady, with the full hand basket in aisle 4, with the annoyed look, struggling to get past my giggling kids, lighten up. I bet you’re not here because you got Boo’d! Geez!

Anyhoo, we go home, we make the little cards. My two little pumpkins then confess that they’ve already informed their Boo recipients at school of what’s about to go down.

Ohhhh…So this in my mind, means that hell or high water, flat tire, sudden stomach bug or evil flying monkeys, we must get those bags delivered tonight. That was the plan anyway, but now it’s critical. I don’t want a cute little redhead to wake up at the crack of dawn tomorrow, run downstairs in her fuzzy pajamas and press her cute freckled nose to the window, only to find a front stoop as empty as a witch’s cauldron come November (I assume they take the month off after all that hoopla?).

So, game on. Bag decorating is finished. And like any other mother in the year 2010, I scan the Boo documents via my home computer/scanner, turn them into PDF’s for future use, and print out the appropriate copies for our pay-it-forward Booing.

Show time. My husband and son head to a church meeting, they are responsible for his Boo after the meeting (meanwhile my poor husband is clueless as to this whole deal).

My daughter and I head out for our mission. Since she already had told her BFF of her Boo’d fate, our “ding and dash” turned into a 10-minute visit where I left feeling awful that I’d 1) interrupted pre-bedtime down time that was in progress 2) brought a bag of sugar into the mix 3) gotten their adorable new puppy all riled up and 4) knocked over and spilled a box of Legos in their foyer in my efforts to literally carry my reluctant Boo-er out of her BFF’s house.

Sigh.

It ain’t easy being festive. But the giggles in the dark, the unidentified car zooming out of our driveway, lights off in an effort to be unseen, the sweet notes with hand drawn bats, the row of singing and dancing ghosts on a Tuesday afternoon…

Those fun little moments, you have to admit, are often born out of life’s inconvenient opportunities…

BOO!