These Kids Today and Their Trunk-Or-Treats!

These kids today have it so easy.

Back in my day... (Yes, I'm pulling out a "back in my day." Ever since I turned forty-ten I feel strangely compelled to use a "back in my day" as often as possible.)

From "back in my day." I'm the Bugs Bunny in the middle. My brother was some cut-rate, green-faced Spider-Man. And my sister (on the left) was dressed as...either a gypsy or Barbara Bush?

(Where was I? Oh yes...) Back in my day, if you wanted to get a lot of candy on Halloween, you had to knock on a lot of doors. I grew up in a very small town. Every year at Halloween we would literally knock on every door in town. It gave us a sense of pride, it was good exercise, and it trained us for those days ten or twelve years later when we knock on doors as Mormon missionaries.

But, today's kids have it easy. Trunk-or-treats. They pull up to a parking lot, make the long, three-step walk from one car trunk to the next car trunk, and in ten minutes have a full bag of candy! They get no pride from canvassing the entire town, they get no exercise, and they get no door-knocking missionary training.

I can understand the appeal of the trunk-or-treat. It's quick, it's easy, and in less than a half an hour a lot of candy gets exchanged and you get to see all the other costumes.

There is one distinct disadvantage for adults: the headache. Yes, I mean a literal headache. You see, once you back up to a curb and open the trunk on the mini-van (and let's face it, we all have mini-vans,) the height of the open trunk is just right to whack your head against. We were the only family at our trunk-or-treat with our trunk closed, because after I had hit my head on it once and The Wife had hit her head on it twice, we were done with the trunk. We passed out our candy from the back bumper. While everyone else was trunk-or-treating we were bumper-treating. Not that the kids cared one way or the other.

Of course nowadays (yes, I'm using "nowadays," too) by the time Halloween rolls around the kids have already had a church party, a school party, a school parade, and probably a neighborhood party or two. They're too exhausted to walk the entire town and knock on all the doors. At some point Halloween went from being a one-night thing when kids walked around asking for candy into a two week long party/festival! (It's basically Mardi Gras with more candy and fewer beads.)

There are so many parties and/or events that you end up left with three choices: 1) Wear the same costume to all the events, despite how dirty/soiled/stinky the costume may be by the final event. 2) Wash the costume between every event, hoping that the frequent washings don't ruin or damage the costume at all. Or, C) Have a different costume for each separate party/event.

Maybe it's just as well that these kids today have the trunk-or-treats. After all of the parties and celebrations, I don't think they'd have the energy to knock on all the doors in town.