Z: I have it on good authority that Oprah is handing out iPods for Halloween this year.

She: Good authority. Did you read about it in O Magazine? See it on CNN?

Z: Even better. I heard about it from a fourth-grader, a sixth-grader and a seventh-grader.

She: Then it must be true.

Z: And they all go to different schools. How could it not be true?

She: I want to go trick-or-treat at Oprah’s. Maybe I’ll get a car.

Z: The fourth-grader told me that the first 100 kids get an iPod. The sixth-grader then told me that you had to make it all the way through a super scary haunted mansion built on her tennis courts (yes, he said plural courts), and that if you made it all the way then you got the iPod.

She: Well, sure. That makes sense. You should have to work for it.

Z: And then the seventh-grader corrected them both, and said it was an iPod Touch, and that Oprah’s picture was on the back of it.

She: I like the details.

Z: And then all the third-graders said, “Who’s Oprah?”

She: I think it’s awesome that the kid rumor mill is alive and kicking in Santa Barbara.

Z: It’s so not fair, though. When we were growing up, the big rumor was that there were razor blades in all the candy. That was scary. That was Halloween. This new rumor is just kind of greedy.

She: Which is also very Halloween. I don’t think scary is a big part of the elementary school festivities. I think free stuff is the key component.

Z: But how sad are they going to be when they make their parents get lost driving in circles through the pitch-black streets of Montecito, only to finally find a lone security guard with a bag of Twizzlers at her front gate?

She: Big time bummed out. I still remember that feeling from when I was broke in college, and trick-or-treated in Beverly Hills because I heard a rumor they gave out hundred-dollar bills.

Z: And?

She: Nope, just full sized 100 Grand bars.

Z: I want to see a line of kids camping out at Oprah’s the night before. That’s dedication in service of rumor.

She: More like dedication to free stuff.

Z: I think we should start more rumors.

She: I heard that Ty Warner is going to hand out Beanie Babies.

Z: And one of them will have a golden ticket in it. Some lucky kid will get to tour the Beanie Baby factory, and meet the illegal Oompa-Loompa workforce.

She: Sue Grafton is handing out clues.

Z: Some lucky kid will get to solve a murder mystery. That’s Halloween.

She: Wendy McCaw is handing out subpoenas.

Z: I’m pretty sure that’s not a rumor. And even scarier than Sue Grafton.

She: You know what’s really scary? I did an Internet search and there’s actually a Facebook group called “I found Oprah’s house on Halloween and she wasn’t even there.”

Z: Rumor has it that the rumor about the Oprah iPods started at UCSB a few years ago.  And now it’s finally trickled down to the elementary schools.

She: I know it’s just a rumor — I do — but I still want to go trick-or-treating at Oprah’s.

Z: But she won’t even be there.

She: But her security guard will be. Oprah gave Jon Stewart’s audience tickets and hotels in Washington, D.C., so that they could all attend his Rally to Restore Sanity.

Z: If only the rally wasn’t the day before Halloween.

She: But her whole studio audience is going to Australia in December. Maybe she’ll put one of those trips in my candy bag!

Z: Yes, dear.

— Share your rumors with She and Z by e-mailing leslie@lesliedinaberg.com.