For 364 days of the year, Harrison Street in Hollywood is almost eerily quiet, the lone trophy wife jogging down the Royal Palm-lined streets, the occasional Mercedes zooming toward the beach. But Halloween night, this street is crawling. With seven-year-olds.
Somehow, word got out: this is where the candy is.
In the olden days, kids went out trick-or-treating wherever the hell they lived. If you lived on a farm, you trekked over to your cousin's house in the suburbs for the night. If you lived in a small town, you came up with two costumes, making the rounds in your first outfit and going back out later in your second. You were happy to get some butterscotch and a couple of chick tracts. (I'm lying; you weren't happy. What kind of psycho terrifies children with these?)
Halloween improved vastly circa 1990 with the invention of snack-sized Nestle Crunch bars. Anthropologists say that sometime around 1994, rumor spread among sugar addicts that the best place to score was rich neighborhoods. There were urban legends about people in McMansions giving out whole $100 Grand candy bars. Scientists have parsed the data and noted that there was indeed a correlation between giveaways of whole candy bar donations -- the Super PACs of Halloween -- and the rise of box stores like Costco and Sam's Club where such things could be bought in bulk.
Soon, people were basically bussing themselves into neighborhoods where the chocolate flowed. While beneficial for the kids who loaded up, it was problematic for the families who bought too little candy for the influx of kids. In neighborhoods that had been abandoned by trick-or-treaters, sad grannies with no traffic sat home and wondering what to do with all those little boxes of raisins.
Nowadays, illegal trick-or-treaters invade rich neighborhoods in search of the best haul. With modern day technology, it's almost like a little Mafia racket. They text -- no, Tweet -- "King Size Kit Kats @ 469 Hendricks Isle."
Though the debate over rising tides of undocumented trick-or-treaters has not been sufficiently put to rest in scientific journals, it has caused a minor stir on the Internets.
Instead of "get off my lawn," some crankypants are saying, "Thank God I live in a gated community." Some even vowed to have two separate bowls of candy, awarding Snickers for local kids and circus peanuts for immigrants.
Others say the meanies should chill the hell out -- it's just candy! One night a year! Share!
What says ye?
A. Trick-or-treating in rich neighborhoods is like a gateway drug. Next thing you know, these kids will be on welfare expecting handouts. Officers should be allowed to randomly stop kids and ask for ID to prove residency.
B. I support amnesty for trick-or-treaters. I hope those kids make out like bandits and that they are armed with a rotten egg and a roll of toilet paper for the stingy folks.
Tell us below.
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