What’s up with trick-or-treating?  I used to do it when I was a kid, but I always dressed up!  If I am going to go ask someone for candy, I think I need to be dressed up.  And I always said “trick-or-treat.”  This year, kids came to my door, rang the door bell, and when I opened the door, simply stood there.  Some would display proper Halloween etiquette and ask for their treat in the traditional way.  Others simply thrust their bags forward to receive their treat.  I got to a point where I started asking, “Can I help you?”  That mostly resulted in funny looks.

And something else.  A very mature lady in her 30’s (read, probably in her 40’s) comes to our door with her daughter, and another bag – for her son who is home sick!  What is up with that?

The economics of Halloween
The phrase, “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” comes to mind when I think about Halloween.  At the very least, the freeloaders, that is, the kids, should have to, at the very minimum, provide some entertainment to those of us feeding this frenzy.  So when they come to the house all not dressed up, they are basically stealing from me.  I won’t even get started on the resounding lack of “thank yous.”

Play the Part, or at least know something about it
Now this excludes little kids, but somewhat older kids should know something about the character they are dressed as.  This one kid that came to my door was dressed as a young Obi-Wan Kenobi.  When I told him to use the force, he got really confused.  I mean, really confused.  Another kid came to my door dressed as Death — I said, “I’m not ready to die, you didn’t come for me, did you?” — now you want to talk about confused!  Smoke started coming out from his hood!

The Solution
I should just join the rest of America and have ZERO expectations for today’s youth.  Let me join the kids of America in thinking that everyone owes me something simply because I am me.  That I too deserve candy even though I am cleverly disguised as a elementary school kid.  That you owe me that piece of candy, mister.  And I don’t have to thank you because I deserved the candy, anyway.