When I was a kid, what my parents said about spirits was, "There's no such thing as ghosts."

When someone in my extended French family once used the French word "Loup garou" to mean "werewolf," I asked my father what it meant.

"It's a werewolf that can't speak English," my father said.

People of my parents' generation were proud not to believe in ghosts, goblins, vampires, witchcraft, fortune-telling and similar "paranormal" stuff.

Their immigrant parents believed that sort of thing, but they came to America, and the kids went to school, and now my parents were the proud owners of a washing machine and a dryer, and they no longer believed you could take the stain out of a shirt by hanging it in the moonlight. That was old country stuff, and they wanted to be Americans.

But, because fashion is always changing, a few generations later, their great-grandkids are burning sage, reading the tarot cards and cooking up "spells."

As Halloween screeches down upon us, the intellectual froth rises to the top of the bubbling cauldron, and the Ouija board whackadoodles come jumping out of the bushes like vampires looking for a double shot of Type O, straight, no chaser.

My favorite thing about Halloween is the half-price candy the day after. I do not wear a costume on Halloween because I'm a grown up.

And even when it's not Halloween, the culture is crawling with spurious psychics, moldy magicians and whacked-out witches, all of whom have a "home altar" dedicated to the Goddess Fugazi.

On their path to enlightenment, these wand-wavers steal other people's religious traditions and merrily mispronounce words like "Samhain."

I once met a woman who said she had "powers" and could cast spells.

"Where do you work?" I said.

"Walmart," she said.

"You don't have powers," I told her.

She was unhappy. No doubt she went home that night, wrote my name on a piece of a paper and then burned the piece of paper while chanting the chorus to The Chips 1956 non-hit "Rubber Biscuit."

As the chorus says:

"Doo doo boo

Cow cow lubba 'n a blubba lubba

Hey low a sum did a lubba goin'

Hey ride wanna take a-lubba do

How long long suppa dubba."

If doo-wop lyrics won't make the devil do the dirty boogie in your doorway, what will?

In other words, you have no powers, and neither does that guy with the pentagram tattooed on his neck. The only power he has is the power to find a job that pays cash so he can avoid paying child support. In addition to that, his name is "Kevin." I'm not on speaking terms with Satan, but I can guarantee he can't be summoned by anyone named Kevin.

"I summon you, Dark Lord," Kevin says.

"Is that you, Kevin?" Satan answers.

"Yes, oh Lord of Evil," Kevin says.

"Take a walk," the devil says. "Your parents gave you a twinkie name. I'd have come for your grandfather. His name was 'Alvaro.'"

That's the real reason we used to burn witches in the old times. They didn't have powers. They were just annoying as hell.

Look, it's Halloween. Dress your kids up like zombies or Disney princesses. The ones you dress as zombies will have one hell of a start on becoming meth addicts. The ones you dress up as Disney princesses are in for a lifetime of crushing disappointment.

As for you, get used to being a powerless non-warlock human waiting for the next paycheck.

To find out more about Marc Munroe Dion, and read features by Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com. Dion's latest book, a collection of his best columns, is called "Devil's Elbow: Dancing in the Ashes of America." It is available in paperback from Amazon.com, and for Nook, Kindle, and iBooks.

Photo credit: webandi at Pixabay