Halloween and the ballad of take one bowls

I was never a big fan of Halloween. I think it was the dressing up that did me in. I was never of fan of it. I didn't like looking goofy. This may sound weird coming from a kid whose favorite childhood sweater involved Velcro spacemen, but I didn't like dressing up. Masks were never fun. Even as a kid I'd feel claustrophobic with something plastic covering my face. Make-up wasn't fun either. Just the idea of having stuff on my face made me want to run to this sink. In short, I was the least fun, lamest kid ever when it came to Halloween. The best I could do was put on a lab coat, spike my already crazy hair and call myself a mad scientist. I thought I was so cool.

Science!

I was more in it for the candy. I was a miser for the treats and would even resort to brown-nosing in order to get more treats. I would put on my Eddie Haskell act and try my damnest to get one more fun-sized. I would shamelessly complimented on their decorations in hopes of another Snickers. I can't remember but I think it worked.

Halloween was fun with parents but even better with friends. My group of friends and I would have a whole strategy ready for optimal candy appropriation. We were older and smarter and all the candy was for the taking. We knew the rich neighborhoods with the full sized bars and which houses would give out dollar bills instead of chocolate. We had a whole route planned out before the excursion. The most sought after thing by candy seekers however, is the "take one bowl."

Tootsie Rolls and Dots? Seriously?

There is no honor on Halloween, so don't expect children to do the right thing. We scoured the neighborhood looking for a house with a bowl in front. I understand that they are probably out with their kids and they put the bowl out in good faith, but let's be honest here. That candy is a sitting duck for greedy kids. Believe it or not, according to Halloween etiquette, the proper amount of candy bars to take from a bowl is five or more, depending on how many you can grab at once.

For me, the best part of getting candy was the after-treating trading. Kids trading candy are more ruthless than any stock investor on Wall Street. You might not like Almond Joys but your sister does, so bleed her out of all the Reese's you can. My personal favorite was to corner the market on Bottle Caps. I was the only one that didn't mind the despised candy so I usually ended up with all of them. They were good because they never went bad and two months later when all the other candy was eaten you'd still have some packs of them left over.

The brown flavored ones sucked.

When we got older and lazier we skipped trick or treating all together and just went for houses that we knew had honor bowls. It didn't matter how many the sign dictates we should take, we were taking all of it and maybe even the bowl. We were badass twelve year olds on Halloween, we didn't care about anybody we just wanted candy. We were getting to be too old to trick or treat yet not old enough to realize candy was nothing special.

How old is too old for trick or treating? The moment you realize that you can just buy your own bag of funsized candy is probably the time you lose faith in the holiday. After that there is nothing left to do but get drunk and wait to have kids. Only then is it okay enough to trick or treat again. Until then there is nothing else to do but look for that forgotten, long lost bag of candy you hid from your brother.