Orange and black, team colors of both Halloween and the Baltimore Orioles, is the new shade of sad.

Both are currently causing me some off-the-charts angst and woe. But while there is always another year for a ball team, I’m afraid we have lost Halloween for bad, not for good.

The Orioles, my “team,” died around mid-May, but I had no hope for them. Until our owner turns into a ghost, we have no shot. I accepted this two decades ago. Still hurts, but I “accepted it.”

But now Halloween is haunting me.

I love Halloween!…

…in October.

Why is it pushing itself on me, like an overanxious salesman who wants me to buy something I don’t need, who wants me to buy into Halloween hype? Don’t people WAIT anymore?

The answer is no. Because a couple days ago I innocently walked into a grocery store and the stock boy was putting up…Halloween candy. I checked my watch to make su…Yep, September. TENTH.

Did they move Halloween up six weeks? I’d thought I’d Rip Van Winkled through a whole month.

Then I went into my favorite home-help store and there were blow-up Halloween things at the entrance and skeletons everywhere, even on patio furniture. Skeletons! This would have been funny and I would have enjoyed it — around October 20^th.

Drove down the road and felt someone staring at me and it was a Giant Blowup Grim Reaper/Witch Daily Double. GIANT, I say. Like 12 feet tall. In a hair-trigger person’s yard.

I checked in on Facebook. I am not lying: first person I saw was on the Film Noir page: Vincent Price, who was to horror films what Babe Ruth was to home runs.

We can run, but from now through October 31, from Halloween, we cannot hide.

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