What's scarier than a bowl of leftover Halloween candy?

We are three days past Halloween. Luckily, there are no jack o'lanterns filled with candy to haunt me this year, and the little bowl full of candy I did have sitting out is long gone.

No...the only creepy traces of this year's black-and-orange holiday are on my daughter's eyes.

I'm mean. That's what she tells me, anyway. She's 13, but I don't let her wear eye makeup yet. She already looks 18. (Okay...maybe only 16.) If I start letting her wear makeup she'll look 30 and frankly, that scares the bejeebus out of me.

If memory serves (and it probably doesn't), I wasn't allowed to wear eye makeup until I was 16. I remember being her age and trying to learn the fine art of makeup. I gave Dee Snyder a run for his money.

(Remember him, from Twisted Sister? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRwrg0db_zY&ob=av2e  Yeah, the blonde guy.)

Okay, now picture him without the eye makeup, and with pink lipstick instead of red, smeared on with the same intensity. Now picture him with short, dark brown hair, a tan, big pink owl-shaped earrings and trying his level best to blend into the wallpaper. Yep, that was me in 7th grade.

I was happy to try to wear whatever makeup I could in the hopes it would make me cool enough to hang out with the other kids. (It didn't. They just laughed.)

Not my child. For starters, she doesn't understand the concept of blending into the wallpaper. The other girls are trying to be cool enough to hang out with her, from the looks of things. Regardless, I have told her she can wear blush and lipstick. She'd rather not. She wants the eye makeup.

Which brings us to Halloween night. She said she wanted to dress up. She had her "costume" all picked out. A bright red T-shirt with a vampire face that said "Bite me", a pair of jeans, and  boots. And of course, makeup.

She went for my favorite waterproof eyeliner and smeared it on. Yep, she looked like Ozzy Osbourne!! I told her if she ever did get to wear eye makeup, it better never look like that!

It's not like she wants to trick or treat. She just wants to be able to wear eye makeup, and this is the only day of the year I will let her. She walked around with her little cousins, and was happy to feel all grown up for an evening.

Then came time to take it off. I was out of eye makeup remover, so I took her into the kitchen with a cotton ball and a bar of Dove, and I proceeded to scrub that hot mess off her pretty little face. I did the best I could without scrubbing her eyeball, and told her she would have to do the rest. She claims she tried.

But as I said, here we are three days later and she still looks made up. Not Ozzy made-up, thankfully, but it's still there. I'm thinking she's sneaking back into my bathroom in the mornings and ever-so-lightly touching it up. After all, "It's waterproof, Mom!"

Right.

Guess what Mema brought us today? Yep! Some Clinique eye makeup remover. Goodbye, Ozzy!

Heh heh heh heh (You couldn't hear me, but I totally sounded like the Wicked Witch of the South just then!)