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My oldest research assistant (age 6) had been on my case to spookify our yard in preparation for October 31. In past years I've waffled, grandiose dreams of pirates and mummies and lightning strobes dancing in my head but with nothing to show except indecision by the final sunset of the month.

Growing up, having an engineer as a father was a mixed bag. The negatives include perfectionism, an exasperating drive to turn even the simplest of actions into a methodical, systemized affair; but among the positives number mechanical creativity and a joy of solving problems for problem-solving's sake. Yes, I had store-bought costumes as a kid, but I also had costumes that involved lumber, bolts of faux fur, straps and harnesses, duct tape, and in one example, an accusation of cruelty toward my parents for making a child wear such an outrageous contraption. One year I went as a daggit, another as Jaws, a third as Godzilla. These last two measured over six-foot long/high, and probably weighed 40 lbs. or more. They still hang from the beams in my parents' garage and amaze the research assistants whenever we visit.

With this upbringing behind me, it is a hard thing to lay down green at the party store for plastic headstones and gross rubber bats. Some folks spend hundreds on their yards but the result is cheap and unfulfilling. There is no cohesiveness, no narrative. No shivers, only chicanery. Bad tiki all around.

I read once that whatever we experience growing up we think as normal, and only in adulthood understand how unusual certain events may have been. This year, I knew, I had to give my boys some sliver of the weirdness I enjoyed.

First, a trip to the store where four bags of synthetic webbing and an inflatable spider were procured for $9. Back home, the webs were strung about the front yard, using garden pegs to create swooping gossamer curtains. Scrap wood was painted with the words "BEWARE" and "GIANT SPIDER," then screwed to a post and malleted into the ground at the foot of the walkway leading to our house. A work lamp provided a spot on the sign. Free cicada sounds were downloaded and compiled into a playlist, then blasted through an old pair of computer speakers hidden behind the pumpkins on our porch. Finally the spider was inflated, duct taped to the top of a research assistant's remote-controlled car, and nestled into a cave-like hole in the web, seen above in the lower left-hand corner of the photo.

When night fell, what came with it was the best Halloween our family ever had. The people approached the house, read the sign, saw the webs billowing in the autumn breeze, heard the inhuman clicking and rattling pouring from the hidden speakers — and stopped. Standing in the darkness of my front window, RC controller in hand, I could see the dots connecting in their heads. Somewhere between them and the candy, they knew, was something. And when they began walking up the path to our porch, I gunned the joystick and the half-seen arachnid shot from its hidey-hole to roll across their toes.

The first woman I did it to screamed. Two teenage girls danced a hysterical jig — then left the premises without bothering to retrieve the treat in reward for the trick. One lone high schooler dithered at the foot of the path for a full minute, paroxysms of anxiety rippling his painted face, before walking away candyless. The adults, I realized, were more impressionable than some of the kids. Many of the older elementary boys were immune — the invulnerability of youth — but some appreciated the spirit of the trick and high-fived the research assistants at the door. Whole families snapped portraits of themselves in front of the webs — "We Survived Halloween at the Kuhls'!" And the entire time, my little boys were alongside me at the window, cackling to see such fun.

There's already talk of next year. More webs and a bigger spider? A giant bat, perhaps attached to an RC plane or helicopter? And yet somehow I think skeletal pirates may be my true métier...