David Spates "Therefore I Am" Published Oct. 29, 2002

The real fun begins when
the trick-or-treating is over

I love the smell of nougat in the morning. It smells like ... victory. Is there anything better in an 8-year-old's world than waking up the morning after Halloween and looking over the evening's spoils of war? I doubt it.

I loved Halloween as a kid. The anticipation rivaled only Christmas'. What would I go as? Who would I trick-or-treat with? Which end of the neighborhood should I start from to ensure maximum chocolate saturation? Would this be the year that my parents finally let me go out by myself?

Would the weather cooperate or would I be forced to wear a parka under my Darth Vader costume, thereby making myself look like a cross between the Dark Lord and "husky" uncle Mort? What revenge would I exact on houses that didn't participate in what is arguably the finest evening of a young lad's life? (Truth be told, I never did anything. It was always just talk. I was too chicken.) How large a candy bag would I need? (I always overestimated that last one.)

The Halloween process is divided into three stages. First is the anticipation, second is the actual event, and third is the aftermath. The anticipation and the actual event get a lot of press, so it's the aftermath that I want to focus on today.

The first thing that happens after trick-or-treating concludes is the parents conduct the dreaded candy inspection. As a young boy, I feared Mom or Dad would spot some tell-tale sign of candy tampering and the entire batch would have to be thrown away for safety's sake -- kind of like when one person in Topeka gets food poisoning from a hamburger and the beef company issues a nationwide recall.

In my entire trick-or-treating career, they never found any questionable candy. In fact, I now suspect that the "inspection" was nothing more than a ruse to get first dibs. It may be a parent-wide conspiracy. Think of it. Anytime you read a checklist regarding Halloween safety, there's always a reminder to have the parents inspect the candy. And WHO writes the safety checklists? Right! Parents! Safety, shmafety -- parents are looking to pilfer the Snickers. I'm a parent now, too, but we haven't done any trick-or-treating yet. In the coming years, I'll be keeping a close eye on those Reese's peanut butter cups. I have a feeling those will look suspicious.

After the parental inspection, which might as well be called a 10-percent candy tax, the trick-or-treater is left with a lesson in rationing. You can stuff yourself silly and eat all your candy in the next day or two, or you can carefully monitor your candy consumption so as to extend the Halloween sugar celebration for weeks. A savvy trick-or-treater can protract his candy stockpiles well into Thanksgiving.

Usually I gobbled all my candy in a few days, but one year I made a deliberate and calculated effort to prorate the goodies. If you eat no more than two or three pieces a day, a standard Halloween haul will last almost until Christmas. The best part is that you're still enjoying Halloween candy in late November and December while your buddies' candy has been eaten and forgotten weeks ago. A child hath no envy like a friend with candy.

Of course by the end of the candy supply, you're left with little more than those vile peanut butter kisses wrapped in the orange and black waxed paper, but it's the satisfaction of an extended Halloween that is the true reward. When the cold, picked-over turkey carcass is sitting in a pool of congealed gravy, Grandpa is snoring away in the La-Z-Boy, and the Lions are up by 14, even bad Halloween candy is a delight.

Now that I'm an adult, I can buy and eat as much candy as I want. If the urge struck, I could fill my grocery cart with bag after bag of nothing but the good stuff -- Snickers, Milky Ways, Hersheys, Reese's -- you name it. Then maybe I'd go home, dump it all into the living room floor and roll around in it, all the while pretending I'm 8 again and I just scored the mother of all trick-or-treating loads. I could gorge myself for days and still extend the Halloween sugar celebration well past Thanksgiving, even Christmas or New Year's. If I were in danger of running out, I'd just go buy more.

But I won't be doing any of that. There's no honor in it. Candy earned is much sweeter than candy bought. If it were socially acceptable for adults to trick-or-treat, I'd probably do it. Then I could inspect my OWN candy.

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David Spates is a Knoxville resident and Crossville Chronicle contributor whose column is published each Tuesday. He can be reached at davespates@chartertn.net.