Teenagers Ruin Everything

I'm not sure how old I was when I stopped trick or treating, I think it was around 11 or 12. All I know is that one year I just stopped going door to door asking for candy while dressed up like a Stormtrooper or what have you. I most certainly did not go trick or treating after hitting puberty, and if I tried I'm pretty sure my parents would have prevented me from doing so. In fact, I don't remember any of my friends (all three of them) hitting the streets on Halloween night trick or treating after 6^th grade. So, I guess that's why I'm always surprised, annoyed, and disgusted by the number of teenaged kids showing up at my door on Halloween…why the f*ck are these kid's parents letting them go out to trick or treat?

When my kids hit their teen years I'm going to put a stop to the trick or treating. They can dress up and go to a Halloween party at a friend's house or to the movies, but they won't be going trick or treating. That activity should be left to the pre-pubescent set.

At one point last night two cars pulled into our cul-de-sac, both full of kids old enough to drive and smoke because all of them reeked of cigarettes. A couple of them were drinking energy drinks, and all that stuff does is turbo charge d-bag behavior. Anyway, I watched them pull up as I was trying to relight the candles in the jack-o-lanterns, so I went back inside and closed the front door…and steeled myself for their arrival. They didn't knock on the door, they pounded on it like barbarians at the gates of Rome…home invasions are carried out with more grace and tact than the knock of these dickweeds. I opened the door, got a lung full of second hand smoke, and begrudgingly gave the punks some candy…one piece each, and not the good stuff….but the off-brand Laffy Taffy we picked up somewhere last year and a couple of boxes of Nerds. I would have liked to have given them nothing, but effing kids today will come back and vandalize your house or throw an M-80 at your front door or set your car on fire. I don't trust them to not do something stupid and I really didn't want to have to hunt these kids down afterwards like some sort of suburban Punisher.

The girls had fun though, and I'd like to thank our neighbors for the pre-Halloween party with pizza and Rolling Rock. Unfortunately, my girls are the world's most finicky eaters and don't partake of pizza…or Rolling Rock. Still, they had fun mingling with the other kids...

Only one house kind of freaked them out, the one with the strobe lights, fog machines, and every single motion activated animatronic ghoul that Spirit Halloween sold this year, including one of the demonic zombie babies sitting on the steps. Maddy didn't like the smell of the fog and claimed it stung her eyes….Jossy thought they might have a dog, and dogs to her are scarier than demonic zombies babies….Katelyn wasn't too sure about the lights…but in the end they all went to the door to get their candy.

Here's hoping everyone had a safe and fun Halloween!