Happy Halloween Part 1: Why Socialism Will Not Work Without Safety Nets in Place

For some unknown reason Davenport is the only one of the six to seven Quad Cities that had trick-or-treating on Thursday, October 30th last week. Every other city had the annual Halloween event on Halloween, as Logic would dictate.

Logic's funny, no? Logic would continue to tell you that a child need only trick or treat one night a year. Granted, a child would trick or treat every night of the year if it was up to him/her. That is why Logic would tell us no parent would allow his/her child to collect candy for six hours over two days. The parent would understand that would be entirely too much candy for a grown human, let alone a miniature one. That said, Logic could foresee an exception if a child had an incredibly grand and majestic costume. Or at the very least, A costume. Any costume. Some sort of something. Anything. Logic, pretty sure of herself at this point would make one last bold declaration: Assuming a parent for some unknown reason drives twenty minutes to a nearby city in order for his/her child with the incredible costume to trick or treat, the parent would have the sense not to drop off the child to wander an unfamiliar neighborhood while the parent sat in his/her van smoking a cigarette and talking on his/her cellphone.

Unfortunately, Logic does not live in the Quad Cities. I don't think she ever did. This place makes no sense.

Take for instance Thursday. Instead of doing what I wanted to do--turn off all the lights and hide in the basement until trick or treating ended--I did what I thought was socially responsible: purchased $40 worth of delicious candy chocolates, poured the candy into a festive bowl, and sat on my front porch handing out candy. It started innocently enough. If "innocently enough" in your world means being mauled instantaneously by psychotic Hershey bar craving eight-year olds dressed up as Spider-Man. This was fine. They were in costumes and had parents.

Then the Illinois Astro vans started to line the street. If I didn't know any better, I would have thought Foghat was playing at the nearby arena. The vans parked, the side doors opened, and thousands upon thousands of multi-cultural children poured out. Lest you feel I'm racist, know that each family somehow magically consisted of all the races of the rainbow. The front doors of the vans did not open. Instead, the tinted windows rolled down. I never actually saw a parent, but I was assured a driver existed because of the faint glow of cigarette ember emanating inside each van. As the smoke billowed towards the street to set the appropriate Halloween ambiance, children continued to approach me and ask for candy. The children with parents followed protocol: a polite approach, a hee-hee I'm wearing a Hannah Montana costume giggle, a shy holding out of a jack-o-lantern or monster bag, a quiet "trick or treat," and a "thank you."

The children with the mysterious smoking parents? Not so much. I started to get incredibly frustrated at the hordes of children with no costume who trampled my finely manicured lawn in order to obtain a Reese's. I asked one overweight child in a black sweatshirt and black jeans what he was supposed to be. "Um. A hobo." No, your jeans are ripped because you are poor and your parents don't love you. It has nothing to do with your costume.

I've never been the most rational frustrated person in the world. Continued frustration generally causes me to want to start making small gestures of defiance. Some say this is me just being an asshole. Whatever your take, all I know is my frustration culminated when a nine-year old boy with no costume came running from across the street into my yard. He ran in front of the eight children waiting in line, opened his bag, and shoved it in my face. I told him he wasn't even wearing a costume. He shook his bag at me and said, "Oh come on." I looked at him and said, "I don't think so kid. Get off of my yard." His lip quivered. He shook his bag one more time. I pointed at the sidewalk and said, "Not happening." He then ran to my neighbor's house.

In addition to the strange parentless costume-free children, there were babies out in droves. Honest to goodness babies. Each individual baby was attached to the arm of a nineteen year old mother. The mother, with no shame in her Dale Earnhardt tee would put out a Halloween bag and say, "trick or treat...it's for the baby." I get it. Times are tough. The economy is in crisis. Food prices haven't receded from the inflated highs from the recent fuel price sky-rocketation. I also get that when people forgo an honest childhood of tee-peeing houses and attending sock hops in exchange for fervent unprotected intercourse--some young mothers may feel like they lost their innocence too soon. Maybe Halloween brings some sort of nostalgic yearning of days gone by when they weren't saddled with the permanent mistakes of premature ejaculation.

Regardless...the following scenario should not happen, ever, at all: a scourge of teenage mothers invade a neighborhood and use their small plush-costumed children as an excuse to get $17.44 worth of candy. A teenage mother who was turned down by my neighbor should not cross the street, get on a cellphone she can't possibly afford, and tell her friend loud enough so we can all hear, "Yer God Damned right we're leaving this place. These people are assholes. One person told me since I'd a'ready been to their house they ain't goyin to give me another piece of candy." Really? You're an adult. You should not be trick or treating. If for some reason you are trick or treating, you shouldn't be pissed off when rational people don't give you candy. You certainly shouldn't swear in front of crowds of children. Also, you should die. You're the most pathetic person on Earth. Congratulations.

Two hours into the scheduled three hour event, I had had enough. The last straw was a family of seven Hispanic children who all decided to reach into my bowl AFTER I put a piece of candy into their bags in an attempt to grab handfuls of candy. I gave them a little. They wanted a lot. When I turned them down, I did not receive any sort of gracias for the initial candy--I just received bitterness for cutting them off. At that point it was 7:00, I was hungry, My Name is Earl was on, and I realized this next generation of children will inevitably destroy the entire Earth. I didn't feel like giving them my purchased candy as a reward. With that, I went inside my house and locked the door.