11/1/2007 Satan's Army

Last night I went to the store to prepare for trick or treaters, as there are tons of kids in my hood.To be on the safe side I bought my favorite and second favorite candies just in case we didn't get too many kids. On the way back home I saw hoards of kids! Penguin costumes, spiderman, two shreks, some toddler pumpkins, some kind of super hero with blue blockers... TONS of kids. (My friend Adrienne told me that when she was little she dressed up as Alfred Hitchcock. ??? I'm sure that stumped her folks) Anyway, I got home and turned on our party lights to make our otherwise condemned-looking house appear inviting to children and their paranoid parents. Fox got to bed, then I cooked, then we ate, then it was 9pm and still no one had knocked at our door. My sister in law Cassie called and I went outside to talk to her. We remembered all of those horrible things we were told as children to curb our desires to go door to door begging strangers for food. Razors in the apples, poison in the cookies, LSD infused sweetarts, Satanists eating cats... Did any of those things ever happen? I never knew anyone who encountered crap in their trick or treat bags other than the obvious, sugar nightmare crap, that is. And what about the cat sacrificers? Did some person's cat disappear one Halloween night and never come back?

"Clearly the cat was abducted by Satan's Army and it's blood was spilled in a midnight ritual to honor all things evil; next year we must alert everyone with ears about this and post fliers in elementary schools and make it into a sunday sermon. We cannot rest until children are petrified and suspicious of every neighbor"

That is the conclusion in which Cassie and I arrived. It is a bunch of irrational hype that spreads in the same way beanie babies, crocs, thriller dance, tabloid noise, witch hunting, red-card carriers, all your base are belong to us, and all the rest of that garbage does. Scientific types refer to this cultural information spread as Memes; sort of an evolutionary path which applies to ideas instead of species. You know, a person perpetuates these ideas based on some sort of condition or reason.... fear, envy, marketing etc... It seems like the lies are almost as bad as the potential threat. It is unimaginable that a person would poison a random kid, or put something otherwise dangerous in their treat bags. The cats I understand.
Long story short, NO kids came to my house for treats. Maybe it was the fact that I reside on a dead end street, maybe it was the two empty cases worth of beer cans on the porch, or maybe my neighbors take me for a cat killer, kid-poisoner. Either way I will be enjoying Reece's Peanut Butter pumpkins for some time. I bought three packs.

And Hershey's kisses.