happy halloween. . . here's all my money

So since I remain unemployed, my days are spent perusing various sports and news sites, and today I came across a tasty little article on Raleigh's News & Observer site. . .

Tonight, sweet street is Durham's Club Blvd.

I wasn't sure what they were talking about so I read it, because our new home is a couple blocks down from Club Blvd. Well, I'll spare you the time that it would take to read it (it's not that interesting). Basically its about how the W. Club Blvd area between 9th St. and Hillandale (right where we live) is, and I quote, "the epicenter of trick-or-treating in Durham". Awesome right?

Especially since last year, our first as a married couple and with our own apartment, we bought like three huge bags of candy excited about getting to hand out to all the cute little kids that would come through. The only problem was that our apartment complex last year was on the border of sketchy Durham and was very poorly lit, which equals scared parents, which in turn equals a sad, lonely Brian (Melissa of course had to work on Halloween - have you no decency Starbucks? I mean its a national holiday or something right?) sitting on his porch eating 3 lbs. of Kit-Kats. Believe it or not, that's not a healthy way to spend an evening.

So now we live in the "epicenter of Durham trick-or-treating". And as I continue reading the article, I'm thinking "Great! We're already set!" because I bought two bags from Kroger the other day and now we have about 30 pieces of Reese's and Kit-Kats. (Didn't want to go overboard with 3 bags this year, just in case). But as I continue down the page it begins to dawn on me the scope of trick-or-treating that we may be dealing with here. . .

"Rae Jean Proescholdbell [she lives on Alabama St., the next block over] has counted a steady increase at her home every year. In 2001, she and her husband marked down 404 children with a pad and pencil. Last year on Oct. 31, using a silvery hand-held gadget, they clicked off 954."

Wow! That's a lot of kids! . . . That's a lot of answering the door. . . Wait! . . . That's a lot of candy!

So I do some quick calculations:

2 bags from Kroger ($2 a bag) = 30 peices of candy = $4 = $0.13 per piece of candy

Assuming there is an increase again this year in the number of trick-or-treaters, if we hand out one piece of candy to each snot-nosed brat that comes through then it looks like this. . .

1000 kids x $0.13 worth of candy = $130!!!!!!!

So I'm supposed to spend $130 (atleast, you know some of those kids are going to grab more than one piece!) on some unhealthy little treats for a 1000 people I have never met before? No way.

Now, as it turns out, I managed to get tickets (yay, craigslist!) for us to go to the Avett Brothers concert in Greensboro tonight, so we're not even going to be here. So I guess we'll just plan on leaving a bucket out or something, but when teenagers come up and find out all the candy is gone after the first 15 minutes of halloween I fear the things that will be done to our house.

Happy f'n Halloween. . .