Monday, November 3, 2008

Trick or treat at a stranger’s house? I think not!

Since when did it become the norm to knock at any door to ask for candy? ESPECIALLY when the lights are off?

A friend of mine came over on Halloween, and, due to an unfortunate situation, I decided I did not want to any trick or treaters. I did tell a co-worker to bring her children by, but I warned her in advance my light would be off.

As my friend and I sat on the couch watching television with the lights off, I heard the doorbell ring. Thinking it was my co-worker with her children, I jumped up and took the tiny bag of candy I had to the door.

Random strangers. I’ve got NO CLUE who those kids were – or their parents.

Confused, and wondering why they would show up at my door when the lights were turned off, I gave them a very small bit of candy (I was trying to save it for my co-worker’s kids) and sent them on my way. And I double-checked to make sure the porch light was off.

We continued to watch our show, but about three minutes later, the doorbell rang again.

More random kids.

After I sent those kids on their way, I barely had any candy left for the THIRD group who showed up at the door not a minute later (I’m sure they saw the success of the previous group and decided to give it a go.). By that time, I had just a few pieces of candy left, and I told my friend, “We need to go.”

We left and went to dinner, so I’m not 100 percent sure how many more trick or treaters decided to ring my doorbell, but am I the only one who thinks this picture is WRONG??? Since when did parents send their kids to strangers’ houses whose lights are OFF?

We do live in a little subdivision, so I CAN kind of understand why parents may have sent their kids to my house. But with the porch light off? Am I missing some new trick or treating rule?

I was talking to my dad the next day about the trick or treaters, and I said, “Well, they’re lucky I had candy!” But he had a different reaction. “YOU’RE lucky you had candy,” he replied. “If you didn’t, they probably would have toilet papered your yard.”

And he's probably right. If parents send their kids to strangers’ houses with the lights off, they probably brought toilet paper, too. Glad I left before the candy ran out.

8 comments:

misti said...

KIDS these days! if you run out of candy, you can always give out canned goods. hahaha...that will probably GUARANTEE you a rolled house.

Anonymous said...

This is news to me. I always thought the unwritten rule was not to go to houses with the lights out. I think people are just getting stingier.

CR said...

That's weird. I've never heard of going to a house with lights off.

Anonymous said...

How rude! Ha! On a happier note, pleassssse go check out my blog. My sis Rena and I have started a new meme called The Daily Mercies on Sundays. Go see the details.
Thx, Ginger
Rena's site: http://insertgracehere.wordpress.com/

You know mine will be on here again.

Anonymous said...

Oh! Hope you'll feel like writing a post on there soon!
Ginger

Unknown said...

Yeah ... I sure wouldn't send my kids. We actually don't go trick or treating at all. We do the church thing and they get more candy than they know what to do with.

And, yeah ... I did think the rule was not to go to a house with it's lights off. Hmph.

MInTheGap said...

We don't do Halloween, so our lights were off. My parents were over, so we went out to get a movie, and while my dad, I and the boys were out, someone came to our house, and even went around to the back door looking for candy.

We live in the city, so it was something to have someone walk all the way down the length of our house to ring the back door bell.

Strange.

Brooke said...

that's insane!! mr. right was afraid to leave the house to check the mail b/c he didn't want the kids to see him and all he had was a couple of soyjoy bars!