Is Trick or Treating Dead?

It could be that I live in crazy ass New York, or the fact that I live in a high rise apartment, or just the fact that I'm childless and loving it...but it just seems that trick or treating has been on the decline for a few years now.

I grew up trick or treating like most kids. I would dress up as a fairy princess, or a biblical character, or cleopatra, and fill the largest pillow cases I could find with candy. The next day I would take a zip-lock bag of candy to school and swap unwanted candy for more desirable candies from classmates. I sleep with my candy, steal some of my sister's candy, and try to hide my candy from my mother who always seemed too willing to throw the candy in the trash.

I remember Halloween as a special time of year when all of the neighborhood's babies, toddlers, children, pre-teens, and teenagers would dress up and partake in the community outreach farmality of begging their neighbors for candy. Halloween was my second favorite holiday on the Christmas. Each year I would notice that there were less and less children trick-or treat, of any age. I've often attributed to all of the reports of razorblades found in candy apples and poised stuffed in candies. It also could be the ever looming fear of some psychopathic pedophile who waits all year to deliver a trick to unsuspecting children in search of treats.

One year, at about the age of 13 or 14 I discovered where so many children had gone. Why, they'd gone to the local mall! How fantastic! The stores of the mall had all come together and where giving out stale miniscule pieces of candy that could barely fill a plastic jack-o-lantern. Oh, the horror! My parents would buy boxes of candy only to find a mere two or three handfuls given to the only two or three children brave enough to ring doorbells.

Last year the only costumes I saw were on the subway. Drunken adults on their way to over-the-top alcohol binges summoned quite a few stares and laughs evn from jaded New Yorkers. What happened to trick or treating? Halloween has definitely become an adult holiday with women dressing up as sexy witches with see through boustiers and men wearing fake dildos that read "Kiss me, I'm Irish". It almost seems as children aren't safe after 4:00pm! Happy Hour has started, so let the games begin!

Maybe, just maybe I'll seem some kids out trick or treating. With this economy, a pillowcase full of candy might be the only meal some of these kids can get. Whether trick or treating makes a resurgance or not, I'm not buying any damn candy.