OPENING DISCLAIMER: I live somewhere that no trick or treaters ever go. My last trick or treating was done over 25 years ago and what kids have been doing for the last 20 of those years looks alien to me. Like Martians who have heard of Halloween but have no direct knowledge of it.
I was sitting here, minding my own business on Halloween and being Extremely Online as always, and this message of despair comes to me from Test Subject Not A Whale Biologist. I have been at his house for Halloween before for trick or treating and can vouch that this is absolutely true. I would like to think that my face of disappointment that I gave to every parent of a child who decided to wear their little league uniform for Halloween was plainly evident. Except this wasn’t even a uniform, just things from the Giants Dugout gift shop.
This has been irritating me since I was a kid. I remember the other kids that wore their little league or pop warner uniforms for Halloween and it struck me as lazy, possibly cheating. Because I’ve done it before, I know people regard the PPE I wear for work as a particularly scary costume. To me, it’s just “that stuff I wear” and that makes it feel uncreative as a costume. I understand being too wiped out to exert any effort on a costume, but there is some quid pro quo for the Halloween trick or treat relationship: you entertain me with your costume, I give you candy.
Accordingly, I have proposed the concept of the Penalty Bucket. This will require you to maintain two different bowls of “candy” to give out to trick or treaters. The Normal Bowl is full of candy you are proud to hand out to costumes that bring you joy and will be happy to eat if you don’t get cleaned out during the night. The Penalty Bucket, however, is filled with Brachs hard candies (AKA that stuff in Grandma’s candy dish), fruit flavored Tootsie Rolls, five pennies wrapped together with tape, Bazooka gum, and with my mom’s suggestion & disgust as they have been a part of her life as long as she can remember*, Smarties. If you want a good example of what the contents of the Penalty Bowl might look like, here’s the leftover candy that remained my work breakroom after the vultures descended.
The drawback is that the leftovers in the Penalty Bucket aren’t necessarily things you want to eat either. On a positive note, these candies are cheap and you won’t be heartbroken about throwing them away. On the other hand, as pointed out by another keen observer, these candies don’t really go bad and you can supplement the supply for next year with any candy your own kids bring home but don’t want.
As long as you’re committed to the possibility that your house is going to get egged anyway, you may feel free to pass judgment through the medium of candy. Of course, daylight trick or treating means those shenanigans are unlikely. Sigh, such are the changing times.
*: mom is marginally older than Smarties and also from New Jersey. Pity her.