Let me tell you why I hate Halloween...

The Offenders

It's not so much the candy part. Any holiday that involves eating, I am generally in favor of. But with Halloween, it comes with stipulations. And I am usually skeptical of anything that requires action on my part.

When you have children, they want to trick or treat. I enjoyed this as a child, carrying my sacks of candy home, munching happily along the way. Until I DID get home, and my parents confiscated it to search for razor blades in apples and suspicious tampering of wrappers. I don't think I ever met anyone that found an actual razor blade in a piece of fruit, but this was the guise my parents operated under. The next day, the candy had vanished in to a lazy susan, which was transported by armored car to my fathers work....never to be seen or heard from again.

When I had kids, the costumes became more expensive and the quality of loot went waaaayyy down. It becomes an annual fight to even choose a costume. After we spend an entire weekend looking at Walmart, Target, the PX and finally landing at the over-priced seasonal costume store...looking at EVERY single costume...Just when I am about to keel over from exhaustion...my sons choose the same costume:

Last year, the little hooligans got me by telling me that their friend's mom wanted me to go with her to take the boys trick or treating. So I showed up at the house, where she told me it was wonderful that I said I would take HER THREE children trick or treating so she could stay at home and hand out candy!!! So I was stuck alone, taking 5 children around the neighborhood while she stayed in her toasty house. I bet she ate all the candy herself after we left. Kicked back with a glass of wine, and enjoyed the quiet.

Thats what I would've done.

So this year, we have bribed the kids to go have dinner and ice cream at Friendly's, or as I call it "BFF Friendly's." No trick or treating. Don't come to my house! "Keep on knockin', but you can't come in!"