Halloween Darshan Inner Beauty Treatment

I arrive at Michelle and Robert's extravagantly Alice in Wonderlanded Berkeley house just in time to slip into my Kurukulla costume, and join young Ion (aka the White Rabbit) in the front yard, distributing treats to an endless stream of little & not-so-little trick-or-treaters.  
Hello, Fuzzy  Dinosaur!
Hello, Little Cat!
Hello, Dad in a Fez!
Hello, Mom in Light-Up Bunny Ears and a Pink Bathrobe.  You are a Bunny in a Bathrobe.  I LOVE it!
Hello, Army of Princesses, including the Green Witch Princess and the Birthday Cake Princess!
Hello, Ninja Battalions, with your Plastic Swords.
Hello, Parents Who Care about Politeness, Parents Who Are Reflexively Rushing Little Kids, and Parents Who Are Holding Their Baby Hedgehog with Infinite Tenderness.
Hello!

Michelle and Robert have wisely decided to hand out finger-traps instead of candy, opening ample opportunities for dialogue:
Do you know what this is?
YES!  A finger-trap!  
Good for you.  Happy Halloween!

Do you know what this is?
No.
Do you want to find out?  Just so you know, it's a little bit scary, but in the end, it's pretty cool.
OK.
Stick your finger in here.  Now I'm sticking my finger in the other end.  Now pull.
{Child's eyes widen as our fingers become more and more trapped.  We risk mutual amputation.}
Ahh!  Oh noooo!  We're stuck together forever!  You didn't think you'd wind up stuck together with some weird lady for the rest of your life, did you?  
OK but seriously, how do you think ​we get unstuck?  Nope, not pulling.  Not twisting.  See?  If we both relax and push towards each other, we go free…  Good job!  Happy Halloween!

The growing, jostling lines of hundreds of families from all over the Bay Area might appear urgent enough NOT to linger in finger-trapping games, photo-portraits, and silly conversations, but I refuse to give in to market forces.  I know any urgency anyone's feeling is purely made-up.  What, rush to give some little Pikachu a woven grass tube, so I can move on efficiently to the Mini Bat, and the 47th Grim Reaper, ratcheting up Treat Productivity Records?  Seriously?  No.  Mr. Ford and his assembly line can totally stick it.  This is play, not work.

So we play.  I try to look at everyone, in the same way that I insist on making eye contact with wedding guests when tending bar.  ​It's the same dynamic, actually: something is free, you're feeling frisky in your finery, you're a little bit worried about the people pushing up behind you, and you want to make sure you get your Thing before all the Things run out.  Plus in this case, you're a kid, so that's a little bit like being tipsy.

Eventually, I get cold, and some of Robert's cousins come to relieve me.  But for a little while, there - for three hundred or so kids - there is Halloween Darshan, a current of love passing through felt & feathers & plastic & woven grass.
Hello, Beautifuls.  
Here we all are.