Halloween is the one holiday that truly separates the parents from their childless friends. The differences in lifestyle between women with kids and women without kids is magnified more at Halloween than any other time of the year.

To a mom, a costume party means dressing up the kiddos and heading to the neighbors to watch her little pirates and princesses bob for apples. To many of her single friends without kids, it means throwing on their best slutty nurse, cat, or French maid garb and heading to a booze-fest to bob for something else.

In the days preceding Halloween, moms buy little, square, foil-wrapped candies in preparation to celebrate with their children; whereas, their single friends buy little, square, wrapped condoms, in preparation to celebrate with their boyfriends.

To a mom, “Bite-sized miniature” and “Mr. Goodbar” are Hershey’s greatest contributions to the candy world. To her single friend, those words mean something else entirely.

But no matter how differently the Halloween festivities and rituals impact both sets of women, there is one habit that we all share during this holiday, and probably always will. It is the habit that bonds us, kids or no kids. And that is, somehow we all find a way to consume  our own weight in chocolate in the last two weeks of October!  

Whether we’re spontaneously grabbing a bag of those cute, mini Snickers on a prescription run to Walgreens, raiding our kid’s plastic pumpkin, or stumbling by the receptionist’s desk at work 49 times to remove the pointy hat from the witch head-candy jar for yet another Reesee’s Peanut Butter Cup, we women probably manage to indulge in more chocolate for this one holiday than for three Valentine’s Days combined! 

So I’ve found a great tool for all of you who want to make sure you burn off the extra treats you will be eating this weekend. (Or, for some of you, using this tool could help prevent you from over-consuming by sheer intimidation.) It is a candy calorie calculator that not only tells you how many calories are in the common Halloween treats, but it will also calculate how far you need to walk to burn off that number of calories.

So, if you want to be a *f.a.t. cat instead of a fat cat, Happy calculating! To help you track your walking progress, get yourself the New Balance pedometer that I use. And remember, Captain Jack Sparrow, Snow White and Nympho Nurse, Paula Pussy (cat), and French Maid Farrah all disappear after the night is over; jiggly buns and bellies do not.