Halloween completely sucked in my neighborhood last night. The ongoing problem of outsiders flooding into the area in minivans to pillage as much candy as possible has finally reached the tipping point. For the first couple of years I lived in Alameda, I was pretty excited and amused by the quantity of trick-or-treaters we got at the door, and began to look forward to the annual onslaught. But, this year, more than half my neighbors didn't hand out candy, none of the trick-or-treaters were actually from my own neighborhood, and most of them came back for seconds, if not thirds or fourths.

I'd like to be wrong, but it seems Halloween in my neighborhood has become a holiday for financial windfalls for greedy, low-income parents. Instead of letting kids dress up and go out trick-or-treating for the fun of it, there is now a highly organized, multi-generational candy-gathering cartel which comes through, hoovers up all the available candy, takes it from their kids, and then goes and sells it at flea markets for a couple of extra bucks.

I truly dislike begrudging anyone who really needs the income, but halloween is first and foremost a holiday for KIDS to have FUN and get CAVITIES. Second, it's a chance for me to have fun handing out candy and enjoying some cute and creative costumes. Unfortunately, around my house, the fun is gone. There were few non-store-bought costumes, little evidence of any effort to be creative at all, and far too many older kids being snotty about being denied thirds and fourths, or any candy altogether when they showed up costume-free. The little kids seemed robotic, uninterested, and only said trick-or-treat when prompted by a parent.

I tend to doubt that I will bother preparing anything for Halloween next year. Joe was just as pissed off as I was about it, and told me how he had heard people comlaining about the problem beforehand around local stores. We had some friends over who reacted to it the same way, too. Fortunately, our friends brought over two completely adorable babies, so instead of handing out candy to ingrates, we shut off the lights and split the candy between them. Such a disappointment out of an event that used to be a real pleasure.