A reader named Gingela, my new best friend, provided a hot tip that sent me scurrying to Target like my life depended on it. In a way, it did. Could it be true? Were they really selling Halloween macaroni and cheese?

Presenting! Kraft's latest and greatest contribution! To mental wellness!

Trick or Cheesy? Macaroni & Cheese Dinner!

For years, I've sat in frustrated silence, watching Kraft form their macaroni in the shapes of stars, SpongeBobs and Scooby-Doos. How could they do all of that but never make pumpkins and ghosts? As with those Pop-Tarts, it just seemed like such a natural evolution. Finally, they've come around.

Let's be honest: The only way Kraft can compete with Velveeta is by making pasta shaped like pumpkins. Kraft was my mac-and-cheese of choice as a kid, but I think everyone eventually has that big cheddar catharsis, and realizes that Velveeta's swank shells and bags of gloppy, orange goo really are better.

Or at least, they were better. Now that Kraft makes macaroni bats, everyone working for Velveeta can go fuck themselves and die. Everyone except that cool old lady who's stayed on at Velveeta's Cape Girardeau factory well past a reasonable retirement age. What a spitfire. I'm rooting for her.

I'm trying not to make a mountain out of a molehill, here. It's plain old macaroni and cheese shaped like Halloween stuff. Objectively, this is not a big deal. Yeah, right.

After boiling the requisite six cups of water, I dumped the macaroni and waited for it to turn soft and bright. My mac-and-cheese memories are a little hazy, but I didn't remember it being such a drawn out process. Ten minutes or so to get the water bubbling, then almost fifteen more to make the pasta mushy. I could build a flying car in less time. Good thing I like my macaroni and cheese al dente.

Finally, the pasta was ready. I drained the water, held my breath and prepared for the terrible next step: Adding milk.

I HATE milk. In its pure form, I simply cannot deal with milk. I don't drink milk, I hate cooking with milk, and I freak out if something made with milk becomes milky. Even the word "milk" upsets me. When Sean Penn won best actor, I was seriously angry and it had nothing to do with pulling for Mickey Rourke.

If milk is an ingredient, I'm fine with that, so long as I never see it in a liquid state. This is the main reason why I'm fonder of Velveeta. Well that, and the fact that I've mastered the art of suction-cupping Velveeta's shells to the tip of my tongue. Someday, assuredly, this talent will make me a grand prize winner.

Worst of all, in my panic to get the milk step over with quickly, I haphazardly poured around five times more than was needed. You know what's worse than milk? Extra milk.

Nullifying the milk's effects with an enormous slab of butter, it was time to kill my enemy with a bag of magic orange cheese dust.

As much as it pains me to pay milk a compliment, it really did put up a good fight. Only after several minutes and some very vicious stirring was I able to merge a reasonable amount of it into the other ingredients. As it withered, and I swear this is true, I heard the faint, disembodied voice of milk promise that it'd be back.

But I'll be ready.

Ah, beautiful. A bit too "wet," but still, beautiful. With both macaroni and cheese and Halloween relying so heavily on the color orange for identification purposes, they really are a match made in heaven. Makes you wonder why nobody fixed 'em up sooner. They must have diametrical religious beliefs. I say this because it tickles me to picture cheesy macaroni wearing a yarmulke.

From left to right, the three shapes of Kraftoween: A pumpkin, a bat and a ghost. No comments on the first two, but that ghost could easily double as a guy wearing old fashioned pajamas doing his wake-up bed stretch. No?

Thank you, Gingela, for pointing these out. And thank you, makers of Bounty paper towels, for giving me something else to pick up at Target, so I wouldn't have to be the guy standing on line with a box of macaroni and cheese and nothing else.