Students: Bring back the trick-or-treat tradition

‘ ‘ ‘ Like a large majority of college students, I spent Friday in another person’s house,… ‘ ‘ ‘ Like a large majority of college students, I spent Friday in another person’s house, drinking beverages out of plastic cups and surrounded by people dressed in ridiculous costumes. I can safely say this because I was dressed in a ridiculous costume myself, and could thus revel in the glory. ‘ ‘ ‘ For all those who are curious, I went dressed as ‘The Octagon.’ My one friend was ‘Dr. Kenneth Noisewater,’ and my other friend was ‘James Westfall.’ If you get the joke, you are awesome. ‘ ‘ ‘ But that’s not my point. My point is that, throughout the whole night, I didn’t see any candy. None. I only had one group of people knock at my door for trick-or-treat, and I had to turn them away because I didn’t have any candy. I felt bad for it, too ‘mdash; the kids were probably 8 years old and obviously looking forward to free Snickers and Twix. ‘ ‘ ‘ What ever happened to trick-or-treating? Why does it disappear as soon as we go away to college? Fortunately I have a few theories to answer these otherwise rhetorical questions. ‘ ‘ ‘ Mostly, I think that people with children don’t trust college students. Personally, I know I wouldn’t send my purely hypothetical kids to get candy in South Oakland on a Friday night. God only knows what kind of hedonism and satanic rituals go on in student apartments. They’re all probably drinking and slipping each other drugs, those darned whippersnappers! ‘ ‘ ‘ Sadly, this belief isn’t entirely unfounded. College students have a tendency to get a little inebriated, and on party nights like Halloween this is only amplified. Then you get stories about people roofied at parties, mugged in dark alleys or shot outside a stranger’s home ‘mdash; something that recently happened in South Carolina, when a man shot a 12-year-old with an AK-47 after thinking the masked children were robbing him ‘mdash; and it’s a wonder parents let their kids leave the house at all. ‘ ‘ ‘ This is a real shame, because some of my best holiday memories are from trick-or-treating on Halloween. When I was in kindergarten I dressed up as the Joker from Batman, because the original Tim Burton film had only come out a few years before and I was in love with that movie as a child. And I can say with no exaggeration that my costume was awesome, to the point where it won the best costume contest. ‘ ‘ ‘ And then I got to go out that night and get free candy. This lasted pretty much the whole way through middle school and into 10th grade, at which point it was too much of a kid’s thing to do any more, at least according to all the people whose doors I knocked on with my friends. ‘Aren’t you a little old for this?’ they’d say, as if you’re ever too old for free chocolate. ‘ ‘ ‘ But in college trick-or-treating isn’t even mentioned. I guess that the prospect of five-dollar booze somehow replaces free candy, even though from a purely economic standpoint that hardly makes sense: Free is always the way to go, right? I would suggest a college-centric beer trick-or-treat where you go around and collect beer from people’s houses at the door, but I’m pretty sure there are laws against that sort of thing. Plus nobody would ever be home, because they’d all be walking around trying to collect free beer. ‘ ‘ ‘ But even if we somehow manage to get everyone to start giving away candy, the image of the college campus as a hotbed of depravity remains. You could give the treats out to people at your party, but beer and chocolate is rarely a winning combination, especially when it’s a stain you’re trying to get out of your carpet after somebody doesn’t make it to the bathroom. ‘ ‘ ‘ So how to attract parents and kids back into campus neighborhoods? It would probably be good to clean up your house and yard, and maybe leave a porch light on. Make your place look welcoming and wholesome. Demonic pumpkins, trash, broken bottles and signs that say things like ‘FREE CANDY HERE (WE WON’T KILL/EAT YOU)’ probably aren’t a good idea. Think middle America for this one. ‘ ‘ ‘ And if you do happen to get any kids knocking on your door, make sure your costume is appropriate. Dressing as a sexy fireman or Victoria’s Secret Angel might be funny, but it’s not likely that you’ll be getting any repeat visitors, except potentially the police. ‘ ‘ ‘ It might be too late to save this Halloween for the trick-or-treaters, seeing as it’s already over and all. But that doesn’t mean that it’s too early to start planning for next year. Just think of how awesome you could make Halloween, not just for yourself but for all the kids that would be getting candy out of it. And if nobody comes to your house, you can still eat it yourself. E-mail Richard at rab53@pitt.edu.