NORTH ARLINGTON, N.J. — The company that makes the chocolate eyeballs is in North Arlington, which is unfortunate, because North Arlington does not have thirteen states. The eyeballs do. And this week, the federal government announced that the eyeballs have to come back.

The recall covers the Little Temptations brand Halloween Chocolatey Eyeballs, sold at TJ Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods and Sierra, and pulled across thirteen states for one reason that no one saw coming while the candy was still shaped like eyes: they contain milk, and the label did not say so, which the company and the FDA describe as potentially life-threatening for anyone with a milk allergy. The company, Crystal Temptations, issued the recall in late summer and the notice reached the public in time for the weekend when every parent in America audits a candy bowl, which the company’s communications team has since described, without irony, as “spooky timing.”

The country has responded the way it always responds to candy: by collecting it.

Sealed bags of the recalled eyeballs have begun surfacing at flea markets and church-bazaar swap tables at a nine-dollar premium, a price the sellers attribute to Halloween and the buyers attribute to the fact that no store in thirteen states will take them back before Tuesday. Parents describe the logistics of the recall with the exhausted specificity of people holding small change. Dana Kowalchuk of Dayton, Ohio, bought forty bags at a HomeGoods in September because they were two dollars, and now stands in her kitchen holding a bag of candy eyes that have become, in her words, “a paperwork problem.”

“My kids don’t have a milk allergy,” she said. “My kids have a candy emergency, and I’m the one who has to explain to them that the eyeballs got recalled mid-week. Do you know what it’s like to tell a nine-year-old the candy has a legal issue? They think that’s funnier than the candy.”

Pharmacies in the affected states report a modest rush of parents asking whether the candy in the bowl at home is on a list, and the answer this week is: possibly, probably, check the bag. A pharmacy owner in one of the thirteen — he asked not to name the thirteen, “the other thirty want to feel included” — said his trick-or-treat inventory of the last week may now technically be evidence.

Even the dentists are on board. “The teeth never lie,” said Dr. Ellen Osgood, a pediatric dentist whose office has offered free checkups all week for children holding recalled eyeballs, an offer eleven families have taken up, mostly, she said, so the children could be photographed holding the candy against the wall, which everyone now does, with every food.

THE EYEBALL RECALL AT A GLANCE

  • Product: Little Temptations Halloween Chocolatey Eyeballs, made by Crystal Temptations of North Arlington, N.J.
  • Sold at: TJ Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods and Sierra, in thirteen states.
  • Reason: undeclared milk, which the company warns could be life-threatening to people with a milk allergy.
  • What to do: throw them away or return any package to any of the four stores for a refund.
  • The company says it is "cooperating fully" with regulators, which is what companies say after they find the milk.

As for the eyeballs themselves, the recall covers thirteen states. Halloween is five days away. For now, the eyeballs have the holiday.