Trunk-or-Treat Has Killed Halloween as We Know It

If you’re anything like us, you’re staring at a big full bowl of fun size Snickers this morning and wondering what in the heck you’re going to do with all of this Halloween candy.

It seems like trick-or-treaters were few and far between this year. In fact, it seems like there are fewer of them each year and we know exactly what to blame: trunk-or-treat.

The trunk-or-treat phenomenon has gained popularity each year since they became common more than a decade ago. If you’re not familiar, trunk-or-treat goes like this: You show up at a parking lot where people have filled the trunks of their cars with candy. Then all of the kids (in their costumes) move around from trunk to trunk and get candy. Then you drive home and eat it. It’s just that easy.

At first it was only schools that were offering trunk-or-treats. Then it was churches. Then it was every corporation who recognized a branding opportunity. So now they’re everywhere. It’s not uncommon for young kids to attend five or six trunk-or-treats in the week leading up to Halloween.

This means that by the time Halloween night has arrived the parents are way over it and the kids have been sufficiently candied, so there’s no reason to go out into the night and beg for candy door-to-door.

Trick-or-treating has always been an exhausting process even under the best of circumstances. Parents have had to make sure that excited kids stick to the sidewalks instead of running out into the street while high as hell on refined sugar. And even though climate change has brought warmer temperatures to Halloween nights (fight me: it was always freezing on Halloween in St. Louis when I was a kid), trick-or-treating is still just a barely managed shitshow in which the sucrose-stuffed small people are winning and the parents are considering leashes for next year.

Trick-or-treating was also an occasion where many kids could learn important life lessons. First of all, preparation: They had to plan their costume and their route to maximize candy gathering. It took planning to the point where it was almost like some kids’ first job. Then after their job was done they often got their first lesson in taxes: Their parents were going to take about 10 percent of their hard-earned candy. Sorry, kid, that’s just how it goes.  These are crucial lessons to learn.

But at trunk-or-treats the kids don’t have to even worry about so much as a crack in the sidewalk. They just get dressed, get driven there, look naturally cute and then stuff their faces with Twix all night. It almost seems like cheating when compared to trick-or-treating.

Admittedly, an argument can be made that this is all for the better. Shouldn’t we want this for our kids? Shouldn’t we want them to have an easier life where even the fun things take less effort? Why should they have to work hard? They’re kids, after all. This is the only time in their lives where they don’t have to work. And with the way this economy is headed, they might have to start getting real jobs at age 10 again just like back in the day, anyway. Let’s let them have their fun. Trunk-or-treats can be good for community building, anyway, and they're fun for kids with limited mobility, too.

And yet, the true trick-or-treating spirit must live on. So if the majority of kids have abandoned Halloween night shenanigans, it’s time we officially handed the holiday over to the people who deserve it: the proud sluts. It doesn’t matter if the kids have lost the ability to hunt and gather candy, what matters is that as long as there are naughty nurse costumes, Slut-o-ween will always be a thing.

Next year we’re skipping the fun size Snickers and buying condoms to hand out, instead. Come one, come all, ye sluts. Let us take the night back from the ankle-biters and eat, drink and be scary. Farewell, traditional trick-or-treating. With the kids corralled and the sluts out on the prowl, you’ll hardly even be missed.

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