"Please tell me you are not going to decorate the house for Halloween again," she said.

"Of course. The neighborhood kids love it."

"They do not. You go overboard." This was a veiled reference to the roadkill I tastefully hung from our trees last year.

"Look, sweetheart. You know how much Halloween means to me," I said with puppy dog eyes.

"And you are not taping those to the front door."

I put the puppy dog eyes back in the Ziploc and threw them in a box. "Listen, I told you when you moved in here that I have two conditions – I can decorate the house for Halloween, and I can date your friends," I reminded.

"That is made up," she said.

"Or is it?" I parried.

I love her, but Halloween will be the end of us.

You see, I like to think of Halloween as "the Christmas of October" – full of fun, candy and putrefying corpses. It's my favorite holiday other than Christmas, which is the Halloween of December (Presidents Day is the Easter of February, and February is the Fourth of July of the spring), but she sees it as just another one of my weird obsessions, like hunting, German cars and huffing adhesives.

I know you are saying to yourself, "Gordon, come on. I'm with her. You over-praise Halloween every year, and I am having unnatural thoughts about my own gender." Yes. You are right. And I don't care, because I love Halloween, just like you love that coworker who you're sure is straight but you can't quit thinking about when you are alone.

Let's not forget all the good that Halloween does. It gives children diabetes and grown women a chance to dress up like whores. OK, one for two. Some people complain that Halloween is a celebration of evil. Yes, but so is reality television, and that is no reason to stop enjoying it.

I approached her a few nights after that first conversation. She had a few glasses of wine in her, so, like a man, I exploited her vulnerability.

"Hey sweetheart, I want to ask you something," I said.

"Not tonight. Let's just do it the regular way."

"What? No. It's about decorating for Halloween. I want to put a dead mule on the lawn next to a Santa Claus with an ax."

"Whatever. Just as long as we don't have to talk about it anymore."

"Thank you."

You see? Communication is very important to us.

Hear Gordon on "The Ticket" KTCK-AM (1310) weekdays from 5:30 to 10 a.m. E-mail him at gordon@gordonkeith.com.

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