Feeling Tricked

This area was fortunate to escape Hurricane Sandy's fury at the start of the weekend and thus we were able to have Halloween as scheduled. As you know, I'm quite fond of Halloween. I take my pumpkin carving very seriously, even though this year one of my pumpkins appeared to melt as the night went on. I also love seeing kids dressed up and finding out what the big costume of the year is. (There didn't appear to be one particularly popular character that kept showing up, but I'm discovering that you can never go wrong with ninjas.) We had a pretty healthy-sized amount of people stop by and it was nice to see a few of the neighbors for something other than when we all come out of our houses to find out why there is a police cruiser at the end of the street. Still, I am slightly worried that some people are trying to skate through Halloween with as little effort as possible. If you want to sit out the day that's fine with me. Actually, if you can't be bothered to do a couple simple tasks I would almost prefer it. But if you want to participate, I have three simple rules I would like everyone to follow and they shouldn't be that hard to accomplish:

1. Wear a costume. Now, I've made my peace with the fact that some teenagers see the chance for free food but don't want to spend any time coming up with a costume and bank on the person opening the door to be too stunned to want to question them. (Personally I believe that once you start claiming to be 'too busy' to come up with a costume you are also too busy to go Trick-or-Treating.) It's a good theory, because I know that last night, as I stood looking at a kid whose beard was thicker than mine wearing shorts and a t-shirt I thought about pulling back the bowl of candy and asking him just what he was supposed to be, but decided a piece of candy wasn't worth causing a fuss and putting my house at risk of being egged. The thing is that it's not like a have a terribly high standard - I'm not requiring clever or overly-involved costumes. A couple kids showed up in their various team uniforms and I thought that was fine. I don't even need to know what you are supposed to be - sometimes the more obscure, the better. But at least put in the smallest amount of effort.

2. Actually say the line. The very first time trick-or-treaters I had were a couple of boys, probably around 12 or 13. After I opened the door we stood there in an awkward silence for a second before one of the boys offer up, "Hi." Rather than prolong the awkwardness I offered them the bowl of candy and they were on their way in a couple seconds. I was going to chalk it up to a couple of socially-inept candy lovers, but that scene repeated itself throughout the night of people saying 'hi' instead of 'trick-or-treat'. Now, maybe I'm too old school for my own good, but I feel like there is something inherently wrong with that. Look, we both have a very simple role in this play: I offer you candy and you say the one line I had to repeat thousands of times when I was in your shoes. It's tradition, dammit. Again, I'll give you some leeway and allow a simple, "Happy Halloween." But don't just saddle up to my door and stand there silently, expecting me to offer you candy like I called you up and invited you over. If I didn't want to interact with people I would have put out candy with a "Please take only 1" note on it and called it a night which means I'm willing to do my part, and so should you.

3. Don't assume you can have more than 1 piece of candy. I went with the mixed bag of treats this year: M&Ms (peanut and regular), Starbursts, Three Musketeers and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. I figured kids should be able to pick whichever candy they preferred and I had no intention of making them pick just one. (Surprisingly, Starbursts were a big seller. I would have thought the risk of getting two yellow ones in a package was too high, but apparently kids these days like to live on the edge.) The thing is while I knew they could help themselves, the kids coming to my door didn't. Much like when you are on a first date with a woman and have every intention of paying for everything but you still want her to reach for her wallet and pretend like she's happy to chip in, I thought these kids shouldn't be so presumptuous as to grab handfuls at a time. One kid took a couple handfuls and barely could be bothered to say 'thank you'. You grab, you pause for half a second, then you get approval to go back for a couple more. Unless you are 16 and not wearing a costume, in which case you're lucky you got any candy.