If Halloween has passed, why do I feel like there's a great big Tootsie Roll lodged in my abdomen?

My wife and I messed up on Halloween. Our daughters — a pirate, a ballerina and Tinker Bell — were so adorable in their costumes, neither of us wanted to stay behind and hand out candy.

"Don't you think we should just put the candy on the porch?" Sharon asked as we headed out trick-or-treating.

"Are you kidding?" I said. "The first carload from outside the neighborhood will empty both bowls."

That's when my wife should have said: "So what? At least it'll be gone when we come back."

But she didn't say that. She was too busy adjusting the camera to get a picture of our neighbor's pet bird perched on our little pirate's shoulder. (The flash, we feared, might cause the bird to do more than perch.)

By the time we got home, the party was pretty much over. We had one set of latecomers, and they refused to take all of our remainders.

It's because we went too fruity this year. Lots of Skittles, Starburst, Smarties and Laffy Taffy.

All that stuff looks pretty good until you've been to three houses that were handing out Reese's cups and Snickers.

So what can you do with all that less-popular, leftover Halloween candy? There are endless possibilities.

• Leave it on the doorstep of a neighbor who didn't hand out candy on Halloween. Why should they get off scot-free?

• Pull out all the casserole dishes that belong to friends and send them back bursting with the Ghosts of Halloween past.

• Tell the kids they will have a "candy garden" in the spring if they plant now in the back yard.

Or you can take the cliche route and put it on top of the filing cabinets at work. And by Christmas, all that will be left are the Tootsie Rolls.

The Tootsie Roll is a great American confection that is in danger of wearing out its welcome.

The market seems to be saturated with that particular combination of sugar, corn syrup and partially hydrogenated soybean oil.

There was a time when the Tootsie Roll came in one size. It was segmented so that you could break off a piece or two and save the rest for later.

That was before someone cranked up the conveyer belt at the Tootsie Roll factory. Now, the candy is offered in a variety of packages and sizes — an obvious ploy by the manufacturer to encourage added consumption.

But the tactic is having the opposite effect.

Here's what I would do if I were in charge of marketing Tootsie Roll candy. I'd send out a news release announcing that a mechanical malfunction has ruined every batch of both artificial and natural flavors, resulting in an indefinite shortage.

People would buy up every Tootsie Roll in sight, and then go searching on eBay for the rest.

That would return the great American Tootsie Roll to the top of the candy shelf. And our co-workers could at least start the New Year with a clear filing cabinet.

Mark Rutledge can be contacted at mrutledge@coxnc.com.