Trick or treat in shorts

Halloween in Florida is a costume problem. Up north the whole design challenge is how to make your kid's outfit fit over a winter coat. Down here, the challenge is not letting the same kid melt.

Every year somebody builds an amazing full-body dinosaur, a wizard robe with a cape, a suit of armor. And every year, around the third house on the block, a small knight sits down on the curb and announces that this was a mistake. You can hear it from across the street. The helmet comes off. The candy bag keeps going.

The fix, if you live here, is to plan for heat. Short sleeves. A costume you can breathe in. Bring water. The best trick-or-treaters I've seen on the Key are the ones in a tutu and a pair of sneakers who have simply accepted what the evening is.

And I love it, honestly. There's something very particular about a whole neighborhood out on the sidewalks at dusk, in shorts, with the air still warm and the sky going orange, and the streetlights coming on one at a time.

It never really feels like October. It feels like a long porch evening with a lot of unexpected company. I'll take that.