Halloween will soon be upon us. Here are some simple tips that should help keep the holiday safe and fun for everyone.
1. When planning your children’s trick-or-treating route, stick to residential neighborhoods. Try to avoid deserted industrial areas, construction sites, and toxic waste dumps.
2. Novelty contact lenses can add a new dimension to a Halloween costume. Please get yours from a licensed eye care professional; resist the temptation to create your own using an empty plastic water bottle, a razor blade, and a set of colored markers.
3. Don’t give out raisins as treats. Raisins are poisonous to dogs and unpopular with children, so giving children raisins often sets off this unfortunate chain of events: you give raisins to a trick-or treater, who then innocently feeds them to his dog. The dog dies, and the child, unable to cope with the ensuing guilt, holds you responsible and deals with his anger by plotting elaborate revenge scenarios.
Years later, he kills you in a particularly cruel and grisly manner; the story hits the national news, and on the following Halloween, millions of children dress up as either your killer or your unflatteringly gruesome corpse. So please, skip the raisins and give out “fun size” candies instead.
4. Remember, a plastic bag is not a costume. Or a mask.
5. If you have children and a dog, warn the children that raisins are poisonous to dogs. Otherwise, you run the risk that your children may feed raisins to the dog, killing the family pet and eventually resulting in huge therapy and/or legal bills.
6. If you feel you need additional security (for example, if you gave out raisins in previous years and fear reprisal), put a system in place for screening trick-or-treaters as they approach your home. Consider borrowing or renting a metal detector or backscatter x-ray scanner from an airport. Be aware, though, that a few people may react negatively to the use of a backscatter scanner — insisting that children pose for near-naked images and then giving them candy makes some parents irrationally hostile.
7. If you know that someone is planning to kill you, it’s best to avoid them on Halloween. Halloween is the day of the year on which most murders occur (or if it isn’t, it should be).
Follow these tips and have a safe and happy Halloween!
Raisins are delicious — they elevate the lowly oatmeal cookie to the beautiful oatmeal-raisin cookie. And if you, as an adult, choose to indulge in raisins on Halloween, that’s entirely your business. What I object to is the practice of distributing raisins indiscriminately to children without bothering to verify that each raisin recipient has completed a raisin safety course taught by a Certified Raisin Safety Instructor.
See? I’m a third generation Raisin farmer in the Fresno, CA area and Boy Howdy!!! Don’t we already face enough economic challenges without some person writing that Raisins aren’t a delicous Halloween treat?
Thanks, Kathy. Yours was the very first comment on my very first Glossy News article, so it was especially nice to see.