Making "Cents" of Halloween Treats

Allow me to be Frank(enstein), readers. You’d have better luck finding actual corn in candy corn than you will have finding anything about editing in today’s post. If this development is a tad too spooky and you wish to stop here, I understand. If you’re brave enough to continue, that’s boo-tiful. I’ve carved out a devil of a story. I promise.

Many moons ago, I trick-or-treated in suburban Fairfield County, Connecticut. One year, I knocked on the door of a house at the end of my block, and the friendly elderly gentleman who lived there answered. I held out my kick-ass Incredible Hulk candy bucket and awaited my next tooth-rotting treasure. Clink, clink, clink. That’s the sound pennies make when they hit the Hulk’s plastic bottom. If memory serves, Mr. Lincoln* gave me seven pennies. Seven cents!

When that door closed behind me and I made my way to the next house, I was tempted to perform a pennyectomy on the Hulk and toss those coins at Mr. Lincoln’s humble home. Despite being clad in red from head to toe, sporting horns on my head and gripping a plastic pitchfork, I resisted. I may have been dressed like a little devil, but my mom raised me to be a little angel.

But why, Mr. Lincoln? Why give out pennies on Halloween? For all the dentists, nutritionists, overprotective parents and like-minded others reading this post, I get it: Candy isn’t dandy. It rots your teeth. It makes you fat. Blah, blah, blah. It’s one night a year. It’s supposed to be a fun holiday for the kids. Indulge your neighborhood trick-or-treaters' sweet teeth. Give them candy, especially full-sized bars of chocolate candy. Do not give them pennies or, for that matter, any of the following items:

• Fruit, fresh
• Fruit, dried
• Stickers
• Toothbrushes
• Cheesy plastic trinkets
• Pencils — or school supplies of any kind
• Religious pamphlets
• Granola bars

It’s too bad I didn’t hang on to Mr. Lincoln’s seven pennies. With my financial acumen, and given the performances of my retirement accounts, today I’d probably have, oh, four cents.

* Names have been changed to protect the identity of out-of-touch trick-or-treatees.

Happy Halloween!