<\/p>\n
Last night was Halloween. For those of you unfamiliar with
\nthe holiday it’s a beautiful time of year where small children are encouraged
\nto pretend to be someone else and come to the homes of strangers and ask for
\ncandy.<\/p>\n
Ironically the other 364 days of the year we spend telling
\nchildren NOT to take candy from strangers, especially ones that have a corpse
\nor bloody appendages on their front porch.<\/p>\n
Hey it’s never too early to prepare kids for the phenomenon
\nof mixed messages and confusion to all things adult as we usher them into their
\npuberty. It was a bitter sweet night for the wife and I as for the first time
\nin 14 years we had neither our son or 10 yr old daughter to walk the blocks
\nwith as they collected enough goodies to keep dentists in business for years to
\ncome.<\/p>\n
(On a side note they say the Celts invented Halloween and
\nafter a little research I found out the “Celt” is an ancient Gallic word
\nmeaning ” cavity creators”.)<\/p>\n
Our kids were with friends this time and so we sat on the
\nporch and waited for the kids to come up and seek to reap their reward. As much
\nas the missus and I don’t have in a lot in common generally in this one thing
\nwe were united; No one got even one<\/i>
\ntootsie roll without uttering the magic phrase, “Trick or Treat”.<\/p>\n
Many kids would come up to us not saying a word and simply
\nopen their bags as though we were obligated to give them their desires. It’s
\nlike the holiday version of teaching kids that entitlements are part of being
\nAmerican.<\/p>\n
It’s bad enough that the holiday implied that if you don’t
\ngive us candy there will be hell to pay, but now these narcissists believe even
\nfollowing through with the ritual of saying 3 words is too much to ask.<\/p>\n
As they stood there we would ask “what do you have to say”
\nand normally the response was …”uhhh, please?..no thank you?…even a couple
\n“happy Halloween!”<\/p>\n
It took them a few moments to get it and normally I would
\nstart it with a ” tri..tri…trick…?” like I was trying to coax something legible
\nfrom someone who had suffered a brain trauma and was only now realizing they
\nweren’t Scandinavian.<\/p>\n
Eventually they would say “Trick or treat” and we would feel
\nlike we had actually contributed something beautiful to society by keeping not
\nonly tradition alive, but also common courtesy. My next assignment is to try to
\nget their parents to use their turn signals. A much more difficult task and one
\nwhere perhaps a rotting corpse or a dancing skeleton may actually come in
\nhandy!<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last night was Halloween. For those of you unfamiliar with the holiday it’s a beautiful time of year where small children are encouraged to pretend to be someone else and come to the homes of strangers and ask for candy. Ironically the other 364 days of the year we spend telling children NOT to take…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":223,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,6,3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comedy","category-family-life","category-news-and-current-events","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\n