Did any of you guys notice that there were fewer trick-or-treaters this year? My wife and I definitely noticed it, with some chagrin. Another friend in a different neighborhood noticed too. Anybody else?

Our neighborhood generally gets some imports from other areas. Not so much this year.

I even noticed a dearth of the un-costumed teenagers who usually march up, even without bags, hands out for candy. "Who are you supposed to be for Halloween?" I ask, perturbed. And they reply, "I'm the guy who's gonna egg your car unless you give me candy, dork."

So those guys stayed home too. Any thoughts?

Amanpour

No one came to are house yesterday. I soppose its just what your probably thinking everyone is paranoid now do to terrorists and anthrax. It's a pity too we bought all those bags of candy and razor blades for nothing.

Eh, nobody ever comes to my apartment anyway.

My wife's boss bought a TON of candy, and no one showed...

Personally, I wouldn't know -- we weren't home. Our church does what they call Trunk or Treat, and has volunteers from the curch bring their car up, decorate it for Halloween, and give out candy -- that the church provides -- to the kids. (We had about fifty cars this year.) This was our fourth or fifth year to do it, and it's become quite the spectacle. We had a Jupiter Jump and a giant inflated (by "inflated" think of the same style device as a Jupiter Jump) slide for the kids. Also served popcorn, hot dogs, and drinks. We gave out 80,000 pieces of candy this year. It's a big deal.

I only mention because I think it's such a great idea, and maybe some of you could help it spread...But all the trick-or-treaters in town came there. The streets were bare, I'm told.

Wow, that's a major-league Trunk-or-Treat event. We got a good number of trick-or-treaters. I guess the kids here in Oregon aren't huge pussies like in other parts of the country. Or maybe people read Jesse Jackson wanted to cancel Halloween and took him seriously.

We had about 6 groups the whole night and a ton of left over candy. We had a lot more last year. At least we now have snacks for when we play games. :)

Apartments are not good for trick-or-treating. We had slightly better luck with the townhome-- 5 visitors. Only 3 in costume though. The other two were slightly surly pre-teens with bookbags full of candy.

Wumpus: "Where's your costume?"
Surly pre-teen: (read this in a sassy moesha voice)"It's too cold for a costume."
Wumpus: "Maybe it's too cold for me to give you any candy, then."

I wasn't allowed to go trick-or-treating after the age of 12. Made a pretty smooth transition to trying to scare people when they went to my best friend's house. Pretty strait forward lying on the grass, pretending to be a corpse/dummy, and then jumping up and chasing people with rakes.

Halloween's a good holiday. My brithday was on the 29th so lots of times I'd have a party on halloween. We'd eat, open presents, trick-or-treat for hours, then come back to the house to watch movies. Always a good time. Never was into the vandalism stuff, but once some punk teenages threw eggs at us so we started begging people for eggs, along with the candy. Properly armed we caught up with the hooligans and launched our own salvo (and promptly skeedadled).

Brad Grenz

Trunk or Treat sounds like a pretty good idea, except that it requires involvement with a church, which gives me hives. =)

I had a pretty busy night. Even took my daughter out trick or treating, a one year old as a tiger (getting the whiskers drawn on her face was a nightmare). We had maybe 20 plus door rings at our house. A lot of preteen and teens this year too (more than previous years).

The last trick or treater of the night gave me a treat....sort of. A teenage girl dressed as a white princess came to the door with her cowgirl friend and, apparently...flirted with me.

Actually, I wasn't sure she was flirting, she smiled and asked 'why aren't you out trick or treating?.' I replied 'ahaaa, I think I'm a bit too old for that' her reply ' noooo you're not! You should go!'.' That got my ease-dropping girlfriend speeding out of the computer room and by my side faster than my eyes could register. With a glare Alicia closed the door and mumbled some crack about 'Lolita wannabe'. Honestly, it was probably just a masterful bid for more candy, and it probably would have worked if not for Alicia. :)

Hey, Jason, you could organize an event like that with any kind of group...Doesn't have to be a church. Heck, CGM could sponsor it. Whatever.

Maybe it would help if people put up signs in their window like those "UPS YES" signs. "CANDY YES" or "CANDY NO" signs would simplify the whole affair.

One of our neighbors had a sign up on their door that said, "No candy, sorry." I thought that was a better idea than turning off all the lights and hiding. Not any less grumpy, un-neighborly, and scrooge-like, though.

People have been trying to spread this Halloween crap here in Australia. Luckily most people have come to their senses and told any little shits that come around to go away.

>"People have been trying to spread this Halloween crap here in Australia."

Wow, that must be hard to get off the ground. What with the everpresent threat of being mauled by dingos or ending up on CBS.

Brad Grenz

We've had a lot of practise having had to fend off Bible bashing Mormons for as long as I can remember.