Bob Wire Has a Point (It's Under His Cowboy Hat)

Halloween is Here; Dentists Rejoice

By Bob Wire, 10-27-08

	Do these underpants make my gourd look big?

Well (heavy sigh), we’re just about there. Just a few more days and all the crazy rhetoric, the public tantrums, the advertising overkill, the flip-flopping, and the fretting over the money crunch is going to come to a head. I’m talking, of course, about Halloween.

A lot of people are really into Halloween. I’m not one of them. This country has some weird-ass traditions, to be sure. For instance, every year just before Thanksgiving our President issues a pardon to a turkey. This must be infuriating to Scooter Libby, who received a mere commutation of his prison sentence. I don’t even know what the turkey is guilty of, other than being delicious.

So before that travesty of turkey justice, we have Halloween, where our kids (including some shameless teenagers) will don weird outfits, glue odd bits of rubber to their faces, and go door to door, begging strangers for food. And just in time! God forbid any of this country’s ADD-afflicted, video game addicted, button-busting, vitamin-deficient youth should go ten minutes without jamming a fistful of candy into their yaps.

It should come as no surprise that, around the Wire household, I am the Candy Grinch. Do the kids need candy in their school lunch every day? I don’t think so. Should they have some chocolate every night before bedtime? All signs point to ‘no.’ Candy is supposed to be a treat, but it seems to have become a food group, just above whole grains on the food pyramid.

But just try to find a prepackaged treat that’s good for you. The so-called fruit snack has gained a foothold among parents as an apparently healthy alternative to candy, so we have seen a lot of them appear in trick or treat bags. But shaping a gummy bear like a strawberry does not make it any more healthy.

Speaker recently was given a pack of “naturally flavored” fruit snacks after a soccer game, and when I read the list of ingredients, I saw the first substance listed was high fructose corn syrup. Next was sugar, followed by carnauba wax, ascorbic acid, and water. Where’s the “natural fruit flavor?” Oh, here it is: the fruit snacks were poured into a mold by a guy who was looking at a picture of a kumquat.

Unfortunately, giving out real fruit for Halloween is not an option. We all heard the horror stories when we were kids. Some crazy ex-school teacher down the block pushed razor blades or needles into apples, and gave them out to unsuspecting kids. Soon after this urban legend took hold, hospital emergency rooms were flooded with grubby little ghosts and goblins bringing in Halloween apples to be x-rayed. I’m not sure if this ever really happened to anyone, but it sure put us off apples for a while. Some of us got a little more mileage out of this story than others: “Brussels sprouts for dinner? Mom, how do I know you didn’t put razor blades in them? I’ll pass!”

I’m sure this Friday will be the same scene we’ve seen played out year after year. We’ll walk the kids down to the neighborhood a few blocks away. (Word on the street is that a couple of the houses will be dispensing full-size candy bars.) Barb and I will holler “thank you” from the sidewalk and the kids will repeat it to the homeowners. I will immediately confiscate all Tootsie Pops. (Why? Because I can. Grown up.) After two hours of this, or until someone has to pee, we’ll return home where Speaker and Rusty will dump their bulging bags on the living room rug, and spend the next hour sipping hot chocolate and trading candy with the solemnity of the Middle East Peace Talks.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m not anti-candy. I love a fresh Twizzler just as much as the next guy. And there’s nothing like an Atomic Fireball to cut through a hangover like a filet knife through a chunk of brie. I just don’t think candy should be an every day thing. Besides, if kids have access to candy every day, it loses its effectiveness as bribe material. And as a dad, I need all the tools I can get.

[Bookmark NewWest.net/BobWire. If you dare. Bwah ha ha ha haaaa!]

Stumble It!

http://www.top-blogs.com/cgi-bin/rankem.cgi?id=ednor59

Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.