halloween candy taxes

What is your favorite Halloween tradition?

My older brothers used to make us pay taxes to them on our Halloween candy. That's right... TAXES! We used to try and get away with giving them Bottlecaps and root beer barrels, but we never got away with it. I remember one time having to give up a coveted Milkyway and really being peeved about it (darn taxes!). But it's actually quite a fond memory for me now. My older sister, younger brother, and I still in our costumes with our candy strewn out in front of us to make it easier to sort into piles of similar candies (whether it be by type or quality) and my brothers strolling in to evaluate our income. If they felt we had one too many excellent candy bars--you guessed it--we were taxed more heavily in that area. If not, they would pass your pile with a grunt of disapproval. In truth, it was the only time I was proud of the crappy candy I got.

I love Halloween.

how do you say Nastasya Fillipovna?

Right now I'm reading Dostoevsky's, The Idiot.

At first I thought I only liked Dostoevsky because I had the endurance to get through Crime & Punishment at the distracted age of 17 (I wasn't much into reading then). But after getting into this new book I think I have to say I like Dostoevsky. I do. I would go into a literary discussion about why exactly I like Dostoevsky, only I don't really know. Even now, I've written, "Perhaps it's the way he..." three times without successfully finishing that sentence.

I've heard that The Brothers Karamazov is one of Dostoevsky's best, but my book says The Idiot is "his masterpiece". And who can we trust if we can't trust the summary on the back of a book, eh?

Can anyone weigh in on this for me?

And now that I think of it, there is a picture that describes the reasons why I like Dostoevsky, but, again, I can't put words to it and for this I apologize. But here's the picture for what it's worth:

syn·es·the·sia:

-noun

a sensation produced in one modality when a stimulus is applied to another modality, as when the hearing of a certain sound induces the visualization of a certain color.