"Trick Or Treat?"

"It's the season that sorts ut the tw@ts from the normal people" is how my friend described Halloween the other day. Yes this weekend, it's another chance for local kids to get p**sed dressed up in hideous looking costumes and go black mailing the other people in the area by knocking on their door at the most inappropriate of times, like just when you've sat down for tea. Whilst you're sorting out the urchins giving out sweets or "candy" as the American culture would have it, your roast is going cold on the table. Marvellous.

I never really got the point of Halloween. Maybe it is because I never went trick or treating as a child. I don't feel deprived of that though, not at all. In fact in the little village outside the main town, there wasn't that many houses you could really GO trick or treating to, so it seemed a bit of a faff to spend money on a costume and to go venturing out in the cold, dark night when you could be making the Le Mans track out of Scalextric with your dad. Much more worthwhile if you ask me.

It seems like along with Easter, Fireworks Night, Christmas, Boxing Day and New Years' day that Halloween has become yet another of those once enjoyable family occasions into a over commercialized, over hyped few hours. I mean, it isn't even for a full day! Again, seems a bit pointless for all this advertising, weeks in advance only for it to last an evening of a cold October day. It seems likely that Halloween has just become another chance for people to act like idiots, espacially for the older Children who on normal evenings would swap their gaudy cape for a hoodie and be smoking Cannabis on street corners. I suppose it is good for stopping that happening for one night of the year.

Now in no way do I wish to sound like a grumpy old man, it's just another thing I just don't understand. Purposely scaring and then black-mailing people of your local community for sweets? Is that not like a freindly version of Knife crime on the streets and hooded youths attacking an innocent person to get their money or whatever? Indeed, by the way some people act, I wouldn't be suprised to here a story of a group of youths that went trick or treating, attacked an old woman in her home when she turned them down as they asked for drugs? What an old person would be doing with drugs I don't know, but it only takes one youth to ask and maybe, just maybe to get a reward before the word went round and then the damn lot of them would be banging on the door.

Or, what it it was different? What if there was a person of the community with anger problems that got fed-up with the trick or treaters and spiked the treats with something? In this day and age, I wouldn't be suprised for something like that to happen to add to the list of Halloween "horror" stories that comes out on the tabloids the next day.

I got asked by another friend what I was doing for Halloween this year? Watching the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was the reply.
Am I not even prepared for if, for some strange reason, some children came trick or treating to our houshold?
Nope.

You see, in my past experience, you can't prepare for Trick or Treaters. They are always selfish.

One year, when we were just treating it as another evening, our doorbell rang. Sure enough it was trick or treaters. We had little to offer being so unprepared, indeed this was the first time in countless years that children had bothered to come and knock on our house. A chocolate bar or fruit was the only thing we could offer.

The thing was, it happened another 5 times that evening from other groups. So we made an idea to not let it happen again and the next year we WERE prepared with an ellaborate joke, costumes, the lot. And guess what? Not a single one came. Not one damn group of trick or treaters. All that time and effort wasted for nowt.

So we don't bother anymore. They can bang on the door all they want. I'm not answering the door, I'm busy.

Grow up and get rid of the gaudy masks. You're ugly enough without.