Times are a Changin'

I've decided something.

Kids today are wimps.

I trick-or-treated up until the ripe old age of 16 (free candy, y'all!) and I remember hauling my little brothers up and down streets and lying about my age to everyone that asked. I was 12. Perpetually 12, just tall for my age.

We'd be freezing, and sometimes a little grouchy by the end of the night, but we'd always come home with a bare minimum of one pillowcase full of candy each. Sometimes it might be two.

I even remember trick or treating when I was a kid with my dad. Sometimes I'd beg to go home and he'd always say 'Just one more house' until we'd completed the block. And then the next. I didn't realize until I was older that the only reason he was so gung ho about it was because the more houses we hit, the greater the chances of more tootsie rolls for him.

Last night Mr. Roberts and I sat at home, watched a movie and waited for trick or treaters to ring the doorbell.

Kid #1, a little girl all of 5 in a princess costume, got a big handful to start. She started to turn away, and I called her back, giving her another handful. Her father gave me a quizzical look and started protesting, but I just looked at him and said, "She's the first, she might well be the last. She deserves the candy".

She was the first, but the other 2 after that were the last.

That's right.

I had a grand total of 3 kids last night.

I had 6 kids last year.

Why?

Because kids would rather go to a mall and get a single piece of candy from every store than walk around a residential block and get 3 times as much.

So next year should I even bother buying candy for a bunch of kids that would rather go to the mall?

Is the tradition of trick or treating at Halloween a dying tradition?

Or maybe Halloween is just morphing in a highly commercial holiday in which mothers shop while kids get their sugar fixes.

I really don't know. But I'm disappointed.