It’s Oct. 28 and the Saturday before Halloween which, for a handful of communities in the area, means it is time for little ghosts, spiders, witches and the like to hit the streets looking for the best candy haul in the neighborhood.

If memory serves me correct, I drew the “Where We Live” card last year around Halloween and lamented about my childhood years of torture having to dress up as a hot dog, Wheaties box, etc.

Therefore I’ll spare everyone, save myself the nightmare and not repeat that rant in this space.

After years of not dressing up and then most recently participating in trick-or-treat as a dad, I somewhat reluctantly agreed to get back in the game this year.

Like many moms and toddler daughters, my crew started plotting this year’s costume before last year’s candy, and most likely the year before that, was out of the pumpkin bucket.

No sweat, or so I thought, my daughter will want to be a princess or something of the like. I soon came to find out the theme was the Wizard of Oz.

“So, she’ll just dress up as Dorothy and we’re all good?” I asked.

Yeah, I didn’t think it was going to be as simple as that. There was more to the story and I knew I probably wouldn’t be Over the Rainbow about it.

“Please, Dad, will you be one of the characters?” my daughter asked.

Of course I couldn’t say no, because as I’m often reminded, I play the role of the good cop really, really well under our roof.

My daughter got the first pick of a character and she chose the Scarecrow. “Oh, thank goodness, I thought, not the one I wanted.”

“Who do you want to be?” I was asked.

Without hesitation I said the Tin Man. Come on, I get to stop and rest every 5 feet because I get all rusty. I won’t even get into the part about what adult beverage you could sneak into the oil can. It was a natural fit.

Now, this was supposed to be a family thing and by that I mean grandparents included. Last week, I approached my father, retired sports editor of this newspaper, and asked him who he was going to be.

“When is trick or treat?” he asked. When you’re retired, I presume you lose any awareness of days of the week.

“The 28th,” I said.

“Oh, I have to work at Penn’s Peak that night,” he said.

That seems very, very convenient to me.

Frustrated as I was, I went and checked the concert schedule. Did they really need security that night?

Lo and behold the tribute band scheduled to play is The Land Of OZZ.

What a world. What a world.