I opened the door. "Trick-or-treat!" the

I opened the door. "Trick-or-treat!" the princess and the ninja turtle shouted, holding out their bags. "Trick!" I shouted back, slamming the door. Then I waited.

Then I opened it again wearing the wig and doudy dress. "Oh my dears. I'm so sorry, for my son's behaviour. I banished him to the basement. Now come in. Let me get a look at you."

with restrained insouciance. I conveyed my regret to my skittish visitors as my cat costume's claws made noises on the tiled floors. I served shredded orange and chocolate cake to

my guests using Royal Worcester china and poured them Ceylon tea. They were helping themselves to sugar using Georgian silver tongs when my costumed cat jumped up onto the piano &

began to play the music of the night. I was beginning to suspect that the Phantom of the Opera costume had affected my cat's cosmic aura. But something strange happened every Hallo

or Ahoy that came up from the catacombs beneath the Opera. My cat, Phantom, some how managed to play the pipe organ located at the roots of the Opera House. He played a playful req

Uiem that he titled "Mews". It stuck. I recorded it and Sir Ahoy released it on i-tunes some three years later. Phantom had already produced himself on the KittyCorder. We laughed

about it years later as we cruised around the island we had bought off the coast of New Jersey with the money we made from the recording. Indeed, there was a sucker born every

thirty-five years or so...but, in our case, it was over the course of a weekend in Hoboken, where we contemplated the rising cost of a Snickers bar and wrote: It's only chocolate!