This Halloween was lame

Last night was our first Halloween as a married couple. We took our new obligation as candy-dispensers very seriously. After almost an hour at Smart & Final, I came home with a trunkful of candy. Not just any candy, mind you, the good stuff.

I was initially disappointed to find that none of the stores had any good Halloween DVDs. I was looking for Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow, or maybe one of the classics like, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. 'Hmm, no matter,' I told myself. 'Surely there will be something on TV.'

With visions of snickers bars and fond memories of Halloween SNICK dancing in my head, I grabbed some dinner and met Vân at home. We took out the big bowls and made a perfect mix so that each trick-or-treater would get a fair share of chocolate and non-chocolate candy. Then we turned on the TV.

I was shocked, dismayed, and terribly angered to find that there was no Halloween specials on TV. No Are you afraid of the dark? marathons or cheesy monster movies. No Elvira, no Nightmare before Christmas - NOTHING!

Refusing to give my nostalgic preferences, Vân and I watched Charlie Brown and Garfield's Halloween Adventure on YouTube.

Yet there was one more disappointment that night - the total lack of trick-or-treaters. Our first didn't come till almost 8 and the last one came at 8:45. In total we had no more than 18 trick-or-treaters. 18! I remember when we used to have 90 when I was living at home.

What has gone wrong in our society? What has happened to Halloween? Have we forgotten the real reason for the season? Why is Halloween so un-commercialized!?!

These days there are mall parties and church fairs. These days parents are seriously terrified that their kids are going to extract anthrax from a spiked pixi stick or something.

It's so utterly and completely lame.

I miss the good ol' days of Halloween. Am I getting old?