You don’t have to be the beautiful, talented Ms. Pigette to know we are on the cusp of the Spooky Halloween season. Booo!

The other day, I stopped at the mailbox she holds up on Route 27 to get her take on the final weeks before the November election. All she wanted to talk about was Halloween.

“Trick or Treat, you old Goat,” she said. Then she suggested it might be a bit early in the day for a nice glass of red wine. But if I happened to have a bottle in the car, she wouldn’t mind if I dropped it off. “A nice cheddar would go well with it, too,” she said.

After a moment of silence, she let loose with a series of bad jokes, then noted our local stores feature rows and rows of mini Snickers bars and other goodies designed to create diabetes and cavities, hoping we will buy them out to hand out to costumed trick-or-treaters. She said she loved other shops that feature costumes to make us look like ghosts, goblins and witches, noting that some of the get-ups are a bit on the risque side.

“If you surf the web, you can find electronic devices to turn your home into a carnival fun house complete with skeletons, witches, spooky sounds and scary music. Soon, I suppose, Halloween will become the autumn version of today’s dazzling Christmas home decorating contests,” she said.

Then she turned serious. "There are some real scary times ahead, and they are not make-believe.”

She noted that my favorite newspaper, The Boothbay Register and Wiscasset Newspaper, published a press release from the Maine Department of Energy Resources. If you could get through the bureaucratic first paragraphs, it said our home heating oil prices will cost about 80% more this year than last. It also said about half of Maine homes are heated with oil.

An old newspaper rule tells you to check everything. “If your mother tells you she loves you, check it,” the saying goes.

So I burrowed into the family fiscal records to see what we paid for fuel last year. A day or so before last year’s Halloween, the fuel guy delivered us 132.2 gallons at 3.55 @ gallon. Total: $469. 31. Today’s fuel oil is priced at about $6 per gallon. So, using last year’s 132.2 gallons, at today’s price, would cost me $793.20. The difference: $432.89. Ouch.

“What in the dickens would push the fuel oil price up that high?” she asked.

I answered that it is economics 101. If the supply of a product is short, the price goes up. Our dear leaders picked a war with a little country called Iran. It seems that little country sits beside a narrow body of water called the Strait of Hormuz. About 20% of the world's oil supply sails through the Strait en route to markets in Asia, Europe and Maine. For some reason, the shippers owning tankers that carry this oil are reluctant to sail their vessels into a war zone where they might be blown up.

As the world’s oil supply diminished, its price went up, throwing our national leaders into a swivet. GOP leaders and candidates know the voters are honked off about the high oil (and gasoline and diesel) prices. But the White House defends the war as necessary. And GOP leaders are reluctant to oppose the White House. Thus, they are caught between a rock and a hard place, as some try to divert attention by placing the blame on religion, real or imagined sexual situations, or political philosophy.

National Democrats, smelling blood, are all over the place blaming the other side for every ailment from high fuel prices to toe fungus. All they do is play the blame game, punctuated by snarky one-liners and graphic gotcha-cartoons. “It seems,” she said, "that one side is focused on anything but the oil crisis. They are worried more about immigrants, lavish, unauthorized, Washington construction projects, a fancy second-hand jumbo jet, and punishing their enemies. The other side blames their rivals for it all, especially soaring fuel, gas and diesel prices, not to mention grocery prices.

Instead of compromise, both sides are spending millions to prop up their side. Why do they just yell at each other? Why not sit down to try to work out a solution, or at least a remedy?”

And that, Ms. P, is one reason voters seem to be a lot more troubled than usual, I replied.

“I love Halloween,” she said, changing the topic. “It gives me a chance to dress up, throw on a little glitter and twirl and have fun playing at spooky stuff,” she said as she winked. “Do you happen to have any more of that lovely wine?”

Boooo!