Halloween's Black Friday Equivalent

The day after Thanksgiving - or more accurately, later that night - everyone piles into the hybrid SUV with the now-defunct election bumper sticker and heads to the mall for the Black Friday sales. For many people, post-holiday shopping is more important than the holiday itself. Turkey? Feh, not interested. They're too busy scrolling through the Black Friday ads and making a plan of attack for 5:00 a.m.

I am not one of these people. While I love a bargain, I do not love a bargain more than I hate being with other people. Seriously, I run a website called "Hellish Holidays" - do I sound like someone with unconditional love for her fellow man? Of course not. I am someone who prefers shopping online and going to the grocery store mid-morning. I live for the reverse commute (not that such a thing exists any more in Los Angeles) and sitting next to an empty seat on an airplane (something else that doesn't exist any more).

But there is one post-holiday sale I cannot resist, and it is the November 1 candy extravaganza. On Halloween, while my son parcels out Fun Size whatever-I-had-a-coupon-fors, I scan the ad circulars of the local chain drugstores and supermarkets. I prioritize and plan. And the morning of November 1, I set my alarm and go. If I found a line outside of CVS, I would wait in it. Because through that automatic door is candy. And not just any candy - half-price candy! The most delicious kind of candy you can buy!

There aren't many kinds of candy I don't like. Over the years I have even learned to love the Almond Joy bar, and I'm not crazy about coconut or almonds. It could be because the song from my youth ("Almond Joy's got nuts - Mounds don't") still rings in my head the way Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson never could.

Naturally I have my favorites - black licorice All-Sorts (no one ever gives that), Butterfingers, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. But really, I'll eat anything that's 100 calories a bite. I feel about candy the way Jerry Seinfeld did when he was a kid. Apparently he got over it. But I didn't.