Cursed Tongue: Safe or Sorry

Posted by CursedTongue on November 24, 2006

It was another banner year at my house this Halloween. Only a dozen children came on that holy grail of childhood quests, the one for candy. In preparation we bought two huge pumpkins, and I spent a good hour washing and decorating the front window. And I cleaned the house for company. (Okay, I only cleaned within the line of sight of the front door, but still.)

We are finally living in a neighborhood with a lot of kids and we were looking forward to getting so many children that we wouldn’t be able to sit for more than two minutes together to watch a Halloween movie. My Husband was even worried that we would run out of candy and, in what would have been an 11th hour tactical error, nearly ran to the grocery store for a third bag.

Most of the candy is still sitting in the black plastic bowl we bought especially for Halloween. I’m contemplating my risk of diabetes just thinking about it. This is the forth year we’ve set up for Halloween, and we’ve never gotten more than 15 trick-or-treaters. Are we cursed or neighborhood weirdos? Stepping out into the street always reveals a general lack of candy supplicants. It’s as if children don’t trick-or-treat anymore. Not that we can really blame them. Halloween used to be fun.

Like Dracula mercilessly sucking the life out of a victim, year after year, more of the fun is sucked out of Halloween. Sure, now we have inflatable, nylon, light-up pumpkins with which to tastefully decorate our lawns, but what’s the point if there aren’t masses of mini Barbies, Spidermen and Disney characters to enjoy it?

I think it started with the poisoned candy scare in the early 80’s. No longer content with reports on dirty dining and killer cholesterol in eggs, TV news spun frightening tales about sadistic whack jobs who might give away tainted candy and apples with razor blades and what you could do about it.

You could breathlessly relate the shocking, true incident of your Uncle’s cousin’s sophomore year roommate who swears they had an acquaintance that died from poisoned Halloween candy, but after I shake my head in disbelief, I’ll just mention the fact that there have been no reported cases of strangers randomly poisoning Halloween candy. And even if there were, there’s probably a better chance of winning anything more valuable than a free sundae from McDonald’s “Monopoly Best Chance Game.”

I’m not advocating that parents should stop checking their children’s candy, but I am saying there is far more chance of tooth decay than death from Halloween candy.

TV News is also concerned, on our behalf, about dangerous costumes. Masks that restrict vision, dark costumes that might not be seen by drivers, and flammable fabric on a night when people put lit candles in carved pumpkins on their front porches. Not that the media fabricates the toddler ladybug costume that burns to ashes in less than three minutes.

Half of the fun of Halloween is going incognito. Plastic masks with eyeholes and a voice-muffling mouth slit are a costume accessory of the past. Children have to be creative to find a costume that hides the face without obstructing their vision. We got a trick-or-treater dressed s a surgeon, but that seems like a costume that a hopeful, overbearing parent chose, rather than a disguise that a child would request.

The neighbor’s elaborate and costly black and orange decorations aren’t the scariest thing about Halloween night. I have to accept the reality that the Halloween nights where there were Power Rangers and Ninja Turtles as far the eye could see are gone.

Next year I think we might buy a small amount of candy we like, instead of a large amount we don’t think we’ll eat too much of. We can hide out in the back of the house, watch scary movies in peace, and stop worrying about the assorted ghoulies and goblins that drained the pleasure out of Halloween like a Zombie draining a frozen brain margarita. Or we could drive around the city to see if trick-or-treaters like other neighborhoods better.

- Sarah Letnes

Filed Under: Cursed Tongue, Guest Blog - Comments: Be the First to Comment

Tags: candy, halloween, humor

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