Turtle looks in his bag.

When I was a kid, Halloween was a big deal. Kids going out in unsafe costumes at late hours. Knocking on stranger’s doors. A KISS costume here and there, although I have no idea why they would still be around, they still were. KISS costumes. I'm not that old...hmmmm. Never thought about that before. Strange how sometimes these stories make me think about things like that. Why did they have those costumes around? Were KISS still around? Fuck. I guess I have to do late night research. But back then, there was no real scare about letting kids go out at night. They would go out alone till late then come back. My family never really looked at my candy. Just let me eat till I threw up and then laughed.

They believed that the best lessons in life were learned first hand.

But, really we would snag the good ones and toss the rest. Like I want some "Sweet Tarts." What kind of cheap bastard would give those out? I mean "Sweet Tarts" are basically a way of saying, "Fuck you" to little kids. Something like "Well, hell. The rest of the neighborhood is doing this so I guess I have to also."

Jeez. Put a little effort into it for christ’s sake.

I think the worst of all were the people handing out fruits and vegetables. I know they were poor. I know they understood Halloween as much as we understood Cinco de Mayo. I think Cinco de Mayo was about a battle. Somewhere in Mexico. Or Texas. Or Puerto Rico. Fuck man, maybe even Canada. I don't know. But, the bottom line is I still really don't get Halloween but I don't want to walk around with a bag full of fucking carrots and apples. I mean hell, I could go down to the local vendor cart and get an apple for free as protection money from all of the "accidents" that could happen to his cart. I sure as fuck don't want one as a Trick or Treat thing.

One of the best things was the look in the eyes of the person when they handed you an apple. They had this sad look in their eyes. Like "We are sorry. We are poor."

Well fuck them. They think it is that hard to get a bag of Snickers or at least do us the favor of turning out the porch lights so we don't all walk around looking like those orange vendors at the Tijuana border?

Christ. All I needed was a hair net and a cardboard sign and I'd fit in.

But there was one lady. A rich lady who lived at the top of the hill. She kept her porch lights off until she was ready. The night was dark and all the little produce boys and produce girls would have the corner of their eye waiting for that light to turn on.

It hit.

"The Candy Lady!"

A cry had went out.

It was on.

Bags of apples, oranges, pears and grapes cover the street as kids ran towards the door of this house. So much produce on the dirty streets it would make Carmen Miranda cry. Pushing and shoving. Getting other kids out of the way. Just to get ahead.

You see she had full candy bars. And not many of them.

You had to get there first.

I will admit to you that I have probably trampled about three kids to death in my time trying to get to her house first. Like The Who show in Cincinnati, many lives were lost trying to get closer. To the full candy bar. So many kids were pushed down and trampled I am surprised she didn't stop "General Admission" after these tragic candy related kid crushings occurred.

The Who did it. Why couldn't she?

But, in the end, seeing the bodies of your fallen comrades who were just too slow, you had to keep going. Ignore the carnage and keep looking ahead. I ignored their whimpers and pleads for help. Stepping over them, I looked at what their deaths had accomplished.

I got a full size Butterfinger. - T

michele looks in her bag:

Halloween treat suckage. Oh, you’ve been there. The old bat that throws handful of candy corn in your bag and when you toss one in your mouth you realize it’s probably from the 19th century. The dentist who hands out travel toothbrushes. The bastard who keeps his door shut and his lights off and stands at his window with his arms crossed just daring you to knock on his door. Which is all well and good because he’s probably the kind of guy who would hand out chocolate laxatives to five year olds.

You know what’s worse than a guy who would purposely poison little kids? The woman who hands out healthy food on Halloween. That should be against the law. One time I was talking to my neighbor on Halloween. Standing on his porch, eyeing the cache of goodie bags he had ready the kids. I was jonesing for a mini Snickers bar and I knew there had to be one in there. So I opened one of the bags. They were stuffed with carrot and celery sticks. Yes. Carrots. Celery. For a Halloween treat. I slowly backed away from the porch and then ran down the sidewalk toward the safety of my home. That man was pure, uncut evil. What kind of sick bastard hands out celery to trick or treaters?

I had my share of Halloween grinches growing up. There was Spider Lady. She handed out pennies. Two. Freaking. Pennies. And she cackled while she dropped those suckers in our bags. Wrong move, lady. You just fucked with a gang of fourteen year old kids in search of a sugar rush. We were the crack whores of our time. We stole the costumes of our little sisters and brothers just so we could go knock down a few old ladies to get our hands on some Sugar Daddies. And this bitch was giving us two cents?

Oh, here’s a quick physics lesson: when thrown by a sugar-deprived teenager, a penny will make a dent in aluminum siding. Lots of pennies = lots of dents. Ok, not the best revenge, but we were going for irony.

Besides, we had to do something with the tricks we got to go along with our treats. Ten year old candy corn? Sprinkle a little water on it and it will stick to the windshield of Mr. "Keep Your Ball Out of My Yard" Brown's brand new Lincoln Continental! Wax vampire teeth? If you warm those things up in the palm of your hand they become like putty in your hands. Perfect for covering the windshield wipers on Officer Goldberg's parked patrol car.

Don't look at me like that. We were destined to be juvenile delinquents. Haven't you ever seen Over the Edge?

And the apples. Yes, even with the great urban legend of the razor blade in the apple running rampant, people still gave out that damn fruit on Halloween. First of all, I don’t want your god damn fruit. Especially one that weighs down my bag like that. Give me an apple, there’s a good chance that it’s going to end up impaled on your fence post. Besides, everyone knows that any parent who sees that fruit in their kids' bag will immediately take out a machete and hack the damn thing to death in search of that elusive razor blade.

Personally, I think there were some parents that actually wanted to find the blade in the apple. It was a prize. A brass ring. Man, a find like that would propel the average Stepford housewife to fame.

Just picture it. Mrs. Smith, holding the rusted razor blade up like Charlie holding his golden ticket. The local paper is at her house in a second, followed by Nancy Grace asking her all kinds of intimidating questions. Mrs. Smith says there is a madman on the loose and calls him the bin Laden of suburbia. Then she gets the other housewives on the block to form a posse. They come out at night bearing pitchforks and torches, hell bent on finding out who put that razor blade in little Billy's Macintosh, thereby ruining Halloween for every kid in America. Forever.

Of course, in the end it turns out that it was Mrs. Smith herself who stuck the razor blade in that apple, and it becomes a sad social commentary on the boredom in suburbs and feminists claim that if Mrs. Smith had a career this wouldn’t have happened and the candy industry sues Mrs. Smith for fucking up Halloween for them and Nancy Grace airs an expose on Mrs. Smith on CNN later in the week, and poor Mrs. Smith checks herself into a clinic to overcome her addiction to mother's little helper.

Uh..where was I? I was talking about Halloween candy, right?

Razor blades and used candy corn aside, what was the worst thing you got in your Halloween bag? What did your neighbors do to fuck you over when all you wanted was a god damn peanut butter cup?

Oh and as a bonus, there’s a candy puzzle kind of thing in the extended entry.

Guess the candy. Bigger size here.