Unless the angel hangs herself.

A few weeks later, we pulled out the mummified body of “that jolly old elf,’ who apparently missed out on our home’s updated blueprints.

Not satisfied with toilet papering the entire neighborhood’s trees that Halloween, Sara took Mischief Night forward that year and stole everyone’s Christmas decorations. She was daring to do so in broad daylight, but “that’s part of the fun,” she said flippantly, puffing on another Kool.

The Dithers Children (Matt, Debbie, Len and “Buzz”) had great designs on cramming their throats full of Sky Bars and Necco Wafers, only to be disappointed in the razorblade apples that Old Man Witherspoon gave them instead. Luckily, “Buzz” had already started shaving at 6 years old due to a hormonal flux from his chewable vitamins, so the night wasn’t a total loss.

When Bradley retold the story later in the hospital, the bride (his sister Joyce) emphatically said that she had not invited twin girls to the wedding.

“I don’t even know twin girls,” she said, confused, and chalking it up to the terror he’d experienced after falling into the river next to the outdoors nuptials. (Secretly she was furious that her big brother’s clumsy accident had upstaged her big day, but at least the cake had been saved.)

“Twin girls, you say?” said the victim’s rescuer, Old Man Withers, who was sitting in the corner, wishing hospitals still allowed pipe smoking. “There was twin girls – the Swindon sisters, who drowned ‘aught 60 years ago to this day – I believe it was during the Sunday school Decoration Day pick-a-nick. Yes, that’s right. I was a spritely lad of twenty-five, sweet on their sister Adelaide. Some say they come back once a year to tempt another victim to the grave with them. To play. You’re a lucky man, Bradley. A lucky man indeed.