Geek Culture, Writing and Other Junk from Writer C. A. Wilke
 
Trick or Treat, Bitches.

Trick or Treat, Bitches.

Some of this post was originally intended for last Friday’s F#@k-It Friday. However… Trick or treat! I guess it’s a trick, because my ass was too busy (read lazy) to actually get that done. So I guess it really was a fuck-it Friday. 

Last week was Halloween. Yep, that one day of the year we worship sugar like it’s gold. Okay, not the ONE day of the year. Westerners worship sugar on other days too, like Easter, Christmas, Mondays, Tuesdays… etc. 

You get the point. 

Anyway, now it’s over. And I’m sitting here with a leftover bowl of candy that no one in this house should have. True, we’ve already picked through it to get what was left of the good stuff, but there’s still plenty of crystalline sugar daggers ready to slice up my tongue and cheeks. Yes, I’m talking about you, not-so-Jolly Ranchers.

It seems like less than two weeks ago that Evil Fire Breathing Dragon Lady and I were out shopping and came across a candy display and grabbed two big-ass bags of candy to hand out. Oh. Well, I guess it was less than two weeks ago. Oh well. That candy? It was the good stuff, Reese’s cups, Kit Kats, Whoppers… I mean, it’s not like we spent gobs and gobs on the individually packaged diabeetus makers, but we definitely took a step closer to the upper-middle class echelon of treat giving. Two bags, about $30. I think that’s more than we’ve ever spent on Halloween candy before. 

Of course, there was no way we were going to make it through the week without getting into those two massive bags of insulin killers. (Don’t argue with my metaphor, I’m not a damn doctor.) I’m not sure we even really tried. Maybe it was the fact that we’ve been trying to avoid sugar for a while. Or, maybe it was because we “happened” to grab a bag with her favorites, Reese’s cups, and mine, Whoppers, that did us in. Regardless, our collective willpower gave way like Trump’s wall facing off against $100 in power tools.

Still, the vast majority of the sweet treasure was still there, at least 85% of each bag. I think. Even so, it turns out we weren’t really stealing from the neighborhood kids anyway. We had so few tricker-treaters this year, that we STILL had plenty left over. And that includes the extremely tall children with really deep voices dressed as typical teenagers. Yep, gave them candy too. 

But, when all was said and done, I’d guess we had maybe about 25% of the booty left over? And like I said, it was the good stuff. I know, because that’s what the kids said as they walked away.

At first, a part of me wondered why there were so few Trick or Treat-ers. Is it a dying thing? Or is our neighborhood just that shitty? We’ve lived in this house for about ten years, and while the Trick or Treat-inghas never been great, I feel like this was the worst year yet. As far as us handing out candy goes. I mean, when we first moved in, the neighborhood was so crappy, we just started going across town to my mother’s neighborhood. 

You’d think that over time things would have gotten better. Like, sure plenty of houses were empty early on, but there’s not very empty now. What, did no one catch on that with more kids they should give out candy? Or did everyone just not hand out candy because their weren’t any kids, and did no kids go Trick or Treat-ing in the neighborhood because no one handed out candy? Was this vicious cycle of parents abandoning our neighborhood for sugarier pastures? Who would do that? That’s totally irresponsible.

Oh. Yeah. 

Oops. 

Seriously though, I feel like this is kind of an issue in lower-economic neighborhoods. Parents who live paycheck to paycheck barely scrape enough by to get a Walmart costume for their kids, much less $20+ for some candy to give out to other kids. And let’s not talk about making costumes like my mother did. Do people do that anymore? Certainly not parents who both work and commute for an hour each way and get home and just barely have time to grab a couple cheeseburgers or chicken nuggets before their kids need to go to bed.

It sucks. And the days of making treats are LONG since gone, despite the fact that tainted candy and treats is far more of an urban legend than anything even close to reality. Not that people have time for that shit either. Hell, I had to race home just to be there to hand out stuff we’d bought. It was already dark by the time I got there.

So now, here we are, almost a week later and we still have a fairly decent quantity of Wilford Brimley’s Kryptonite. Most of the really good stuff is gone now, and we’re left with the Jolly Ranchers, clearly a tier 3 candy, and a few Twizzlers, tier 2 or 3 depending on the person. Of course the Jolly Ranchers are like cherry and (ugh) green apple. Not even cinnamon, which I could repurpose into candied apples. Like REAL candied apples, not that weak-ass caramel-apple shit.

Candied Apple
This. This is a candy apple, not that caramel covered shit everyone else sells. Cinnamon or cherry hard-shell sugar crunch, bitches.

I will say, when we grabbed those two bags of candy, for the first time ever we didn’t even really look at how much they cost. It was a relief. 

And now I still have the shit-ends of the stick to get rid of. Maybe one of us can dump the crap off at work or something. Till then, I’ll just have to get ready for pumpkin-pie-eggnog-cookie season. No, not pumpkin pie eggnog cookies… three separate things, sheesh.

Oh, one last thought to leave you with… Think about this: Whatever happened to real candied apples, huh? Hard cinnamon crusted granny smiths? Are we talking a change in market dynamics as a result of them being less popular? Or secret government, deep-state conspiracy? 

Answer me that, Mr Anonymous Q, if that is indeed your real name.

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