Beg-o-ween

RatLabGuy

RatLabGuy

You look like a monkey and smell like one too
Joined
May 18, 2005
Location
Churchville, MD
This thread reserved for @CasterTroy 's annual rant. Lets hear it :flipoff2:

But beforehand I gotta gloat on my 9 y/o for a moment. She loves candy... but tonight she really just wanted to run around w/ her friends. IMO much better spirit of the whole trick o treat thing. They kept skipping houses, I asked why, she said, "We just want to go see the spooky ones" or "We heard XX has neat decorations." She passed by our house, and left her bag there, "Meh, I have enough candy, I don't really need any more. I'd rather just walk around with my friends anyway."

I looked at her and said," Who's kid are you?... you can at least scrounge good stuff for your Dad..."
 
rockcity said:
We had a ton of kiddos and had a great time.

10 years ago, we had 2, the neighborhood has grown in popularity (it’s only 14 years old) and now we have at least 30-40 kids a night. We have fun with our kids and others and scarring them and having fun. It’s one of my favorite holidays.
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Similar here. Our neighborhood was built in the late 60s-early 70s. Over the 10 years we've been her, tehre has been a complete changeover in demographic. Used to be no kids, mostly odler folks. Now its all younger families w/ kids <10. Halloween has gone from a ghost town to kiddos everywhere.
 
Our last neighborhood meeting we actually discussed ‘going dark’ and not doing Halloween for outsiders as a neighborhood, and doing our own on a different day. Verdict was, if you don’t want to participate, just turn off your lights and we’ll have a cul de sac party around thanksgiving. That said, No cars parked in the neighborhood when I got home from work this year...first kid was here at about 7...just gave out the last of the candy a few minutes ago...my lights are officially out. I was impressed though, I figured with the weather and world ending and all, the kids would be too delicate to go door to door. Did tell my wife, anyone that does knock on the door tomorrow though, will absolutely see me in nothing but my boxers and running the risk of my dick flap being unbuttoned, asking what they want.
 
UTfball68 said:
Our last neighborhood meeting we actually discussed ‘going dark’ and not doing Halloween for outsiders as a neighborhood, and doing our own on a different day. Verdict was, if you don’t want to participate, just turn off your lights and we’ll have a cul de sac party around thanksgiving. That said, No cars parked in the neighborhood when I got home from work this year...first kid was here at about 7...just gave out the last of the candy a few minutes ago...my lights are officially out. I was impressed though, I figured with the weather and world ending and all, the kids would be too delicate to go door to door. Did tell my wife, anyone that does knock on the door tomorrow though, will absolutely see me in nothing but my boxers and running the risk of my dick flap being unbuttoned, asking what they want.
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Sounds waaay too organized for us.
We've got no HOA here, nor formal organization - just a bunch of moms that talk at the bust stop. Several of them that are friends agree, "yeah lets meet up at 6 at the corner." Dad's always have a backpack full of beers. We stand around and shoot the shit while the kids run around like a pack of wolves, we just make sure nobody dies, thats about it.
 
RatLabGuy said:
Sounds waaay too organized for us.
We've got no HOA here, nor formal organization - just a bunch of moms that talk at the bust stop. Several of them that are friends agree, "yeah lets meet up at 6 at the corner." Dad's always have a backpack full of beers. We stand around and shoot the shit while the kids run around like a pack of wolves, we just make sure nobody dies, thats about it.
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Lol. We are about the same. Parents walking around drinkin while kids run around having fun. We even throw drinks on cars, I mean control traffic, that speed through the neighborhood with all the kids out.
 
RatLabGuy said:
Sounds waaay too organized for us.
We've got no HOA here, nor formal organization - just a bunch of moms that talk at the bust stop. Several of them that are friends agree, "yeah lets meet up at 6 at the corner." Dad's always have a backpack full of beers. We stand around and shoot the shit while the kids run around like a pack of wolves, we just make sure nobody dies, thats about it.
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We have weekly emails and group texts. My neighborhood is either quiet old people that want to be left alone or people like me with a couple kids under 5. There are about 25 houses in my neighborhood, We all get along pretty well, the kids fill that ‘grandchild void’ for the older folks and our kids are all they really care/want to deal with...parents are all happy because we understand how much ‘fun’ the others are having fighting their tired and uncooperative toddler(s). Everyone just gets tired of getting bombarded because it’s a ‘nice looking neighborhood’. After the hung jury, I decided I didn’t wanna get egged so turned the lights on...looks like I was only 1 of 3...but got text messages from neighbors telling me to bring my kids by.
 
Our houses are on acre-ish lots, and we're adjacent to a few huge tract home neighborhoods. So, we've never had a single kid ring the bell. 5 times the neighborhood density, plus sidewalks and street lights is apparently more attractive to modern parents. We stopped buying candy after the second year, and that was only a single bag in case the neighbor kids came by (they don't).

Slightly different than when we were in Charleston, and gave out $50 of candy in 15 minutes because people drive in from the country (then it got busier after that). That would have happened for 4 straight hours if we didn't run out of candy that fast. I think our rough estimate based on sidewalk traffic was $1000 of candy if you gave out at the incoming rate for the full time.
I think 45 minutes was the longest trip to the area we heard (we started asking people).
 
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My sister hosts the neighborhood at her house on Halloween. I’ve been two of the three years since my girls turned one (did last year at my moms neighborhood), both times I saw @BRUISER across the yard and both times by the time I got dinner to my family I couldn’t find him again to say hello.
 
No one showed at my house, and no one showed at the shop (next to a neighborhood, but off the path.. was there all afternoon until maybe a hour ago, and had to fight my way through the hazard light in street parkers & avoid collateral damage collisions at 10mph going home to put kids to bed about 8).. irks me that parents can't park at the park nearby and walk with their kids 1/4 mile between the houses that are 250 ft apart on either side the road..
 
We plundered his hood using a friend’s house as base camp. We were out for about 20 min before getting chased back by the storm. Then the kids destroyed a house while the parents had some beer. HOWEVER, tonight is the night for that hood. Last night was voluntary they said due to the weather.
 
The forecast was for rain, thunderstorms and tornadoes to hit at 5-9

Came home at 4:30 to ensure I could even get to the house. Drove into the hood at 4:50 and not a single car parked on the main drag :eek:

We fled the scene just as it started raining. Headed to Lexington to the 360 grill. About the time we were seated the skys went black and all hell broke loose.
Got home about 7 and sky's were clearing up. At 8 we started hearing stupid traffic on our dead end street. Apparently our neighbors across the street from us had their porch light on, with a "please take one" bucket outside. So of COURSE all the outside neighborhood leaches descended. Scouring every street looking for porch lights that indicated full size candy bars for kids and Rolex watches for parents :rolleyes:
The traffic continued until 9:45..then suddenly died
 
We had a good night. Went and saw our family last night and early tonight. Then sat at the station playing rook and handing out candy while the kids played. Ended up with 72 kids and a Chihuahua for the total tally. Pretty good for way out in the sticks.
 
orange150 said:
My sister hosts the neighborhood at her house on Halloween. I’ve been two of the three years since my girls turned one (did last year at my moms neighborhood), both times I saw @BRUISER across the yard and both times by the time I got dinner to my family I couldn’t find him again to say hello.
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well next time come stop my house.. I was sitting on front porch passing out candy.. Just look for the Grey house with a red door and a BUS in the back yard :)
 
We put a bowl of candy on the porch and went to a party. We hoped that some kid would just dump the whole thing in his bag and we'd come home to an empty bowl. Nope, not one piece was taken. Guess all the kids have aged out in our neighborhood.
 
Not a soul here. Was out in the shop until 1:30 am just making sure noone came by. And because the wife and kids skipped town :D
 
I had to coach at the gym from 530 to 730 and didn't get home till about 8. Wife said they had about 20 kids or so in that time and when I got home there were about 5. One family(mom, daughter, son) showed up about 8:45 which is late... Kids were polite and mom was looking good :huggy:. To top it off, the husband was parked out front in a cream colored mid 50's wagon that was pumping the halloween theme. It looked and sounded great.

First year we moved in, we were THAT house, we ran out of candy in 20 mins, must have had 100+ kids. Second year, we bought more candy and had 30 kids show up :shaking:. Had candy for days. This year we bought a respectable amount but the weather held everyone back. Neighborhood is talking about doing it again tonight :shaking:.
 
a_kelley said:
irks me that parents can't park at the park nearby and walk with their kids 1/4 mile between the houses that are 250 ft apart on either side the road..
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Buddy, you're stuck in a time warp where you think it's 20 years ago. :D

Lol. Parents walking somewhere.


trailhugger said:
Help! Kids From Poorer Neighborhoods Keep Trick-or-Treating in Mine.
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This perfectly encapsulates all of the reasons that very wealthy people are viewed as being completely out of touch with the rest of society. I'm surprised she didn't ask how the kids got past the gates and the guardhouse, as they were obviously doing a bad job keeping the poors out of the neighborhood. I was especially tickled with the "charity" comment, as none of the rich kids are paying for candy either, but have already bought in to neighborhood membership. Who really cares which kids get the free candy? If you have issues with that concept, don't give away candy to anyone.
 
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trailhugger said:
Help! Kids From Poorer Neighborhoods Keep Trick-or-Treating in Mine.
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I Understand the sentiment, but think it’s poor execution. Maybe a distinction without a difference, maybe I’m a curmudgeon beyond my years. For me it’s more about, 1) f*ck...I gotta put pants on. 2) I don’t want folks scoping out what I have 3) I picked my neighborhood because it’s quiet, I don’t want your holy terrors running around and/or the additional road noise.

Yeah, yeah...it’s one night a year, quit my bitching, let kids be kids, be charitable...but as I said in the fall thread, from Halloween until Christmas...humbug.
 
I think people should ToT in their own neighborhood - not because of difference in socioeconomics, or keeping people out, or being lazy and not wanting to hand out more candy - but b/c doing things like this in a neighborhood is what brings the neighbors together as a community. What MAKES it a nice neighborhood is the fact that the neighbors get together to do stuff and know one another. I probably met 10 new people last night, and learned more about two of my neighbors than I'd known in the proceeding 5+ years.
When you leave, to go use somebody else's neighborhood, you're passing up the chance to make your own place better.

Obviously there are kids who live in places where Trick or Treating isn't an option, and we got no problem with them coming to where we are. But don't come here if you've got options at home.
 
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