Pixie Sticks are those striped paper straw things loaded with neon-colored
sugar that stains the mouth and teeth. They happen to be one of my candidates
for "Candy Scourge of the Decade" and I appreciate any opportunity to
chuck them. But crack? It didn't make sense, not even to me, and when
it comes to my kids, I'm usually willing to see the monster beneath the
bed. But in this case, I figured that most drug dealers have enough repeat
customers without spiking the candy of suburban kids.
"It's a myth," I told them. "Like the lady who dried her poodle in the
microwave."
They nodded knowingly. "But we should still check all the candy, right?"
Right.
This is Halloween, America's national holiday of parental terror. Sure,
most of us grown-ups have stopped believing in ghosts; we are unmoved
by spooky stories and glowing jack-o'-lanterns with demonic grins. But
we do not greet this holiday with grown-up complacency. We are afraidof
Halloween weirdos, poisoned food, razors and kidnappers and child-torturing
delinquents.
So tradition demands that we offer a few words of warning before sending
our princesses and pirates into the dark. The short list:
And, have a wonderful time!
I add my own voice to the chorus, dripping with gloom and doom, a voice
suited to one of those gaunt, hollow-eyed women carrying a sign: "Beware!
The End Is Near!" And the bad, bad world isn't bad enough. We must also
harangue about tooth decay and stomach aches and righteously hand out
tiny boxes of raisins, health food treats, stickers, pencils, even toothbrushes.
A trick for a treat.
How did we get this way? How did Halloween get this way? Every holiday
has its personalized disaster scenario, the thumb on the bacchanal.
Christmas has the tree that goes up in flames and burns down a house.
Thanksgiving has the undercooked turkey that sends three generations
to the hospital. We know these things have happened and yet we don't
approach these holidays with paralyzing fear. Why does so much impending
ruin, so much parental anxiety get dumped into Halloween's glow-in-the-dark
basket?
Certainly not because anything bad has ever happened on Halloween.
Just ask Joel Best, a sociologist from the University of Delaware who
has a special interest in deviant behavior and refers to himself as
"the world's leading expert on Halloween crime." To earn his title,
Best scanned major newspapers between 1958 and 1998 for stories about
blades in apples and poisoned Milk Duds. Then he analyzed about a hundred
articles and followed up with phone calls to police and hospitals. Best
concluded that the grand total of all the kids who have been critically
injured by horrible Halloween deeds is ... zero.
"I haven't been able to find any evidence that a kid has ever been
killed or seriously injured by a contaminated treat received while trick-or-treating,"
he says. "I can't say that it has never happened, but to say that it
happens a lot, that it happens all the time, that it justifies all the
worrying and warnings? That's overblown. There's just no evidence."
But we have read the stories. We know them as gospel. Every year, on
Nov. 1, there is an article about a pin pulled out of a Tootsie Roll
or a child who was hospitalized due to some Halloween malevolence. It
is the story that circulates at the PTA meetings and soccer games, that
puts another nail of fear into our consciousness. Each year, we use
the story to justify a further tightening of the leash on our long-suffering
trick or treaters.
That's the problem, Best says. There is an initial story and
it receives front page coverage. But the follow-up is rarely reported.
The vast majority of these casesmore than 90 percent, says Bestare
hoaxes and exaggerations. Most of the time, they turn out to be a kid
trying to freak out another kid, or a child who knows that a BB in a
gum wrapper will bring instant attention from parents, the police and
the media.
In one well-publicized case of "candy tampering," the "victim" actually
died of a complicated heart condition. In Texas, an 8-year-old boy died
after eating cyanide-laced Pixie Sticks supposedly gathered while trick
or treating. In this tragic case, there was indeed a genuine boogeyman,
the boy's father, who had taken out an insurance policy and figured
that Halloween random poisonings were so commonplace that the police
would never suspect him.
"The thing about these Halloween stories is that they don't make sense,"
says Best. "If there is anything we know about crime is that it does
make sense. Why would a drug dealer decide to hook preschoolers on this
particular night? Why would a person be a model citizen for 364 days
a year and on this one night, start poisoning children at random? Why
would someone do that?"
It turns out that only 5 percent of nonfamily child abductions take
place in Octoberfewer than in any other month. Statistically,
my kids are much more likely to be struck by lightning than to be struck
down by a tainted m&m. And the PTA scuttlebutt has got it all wrong.
This period of history isn't the most dangerous time in human history
to be a kid. For most children in this country, it is the safest.
So where do these horror stories come from? And why am I so quick,
almost eager, to believe them?
Maybe because it's Halloween. Maybe because I can't go trick or treating
and I can't leap out from behind bushes and scare the hell out of my
friends as we chase candy from house to house. Maybe this is the way
grown-ups celebrate, in a grown-up sort of way. We exploit the opportunity
to be scared to death while knowing that everything is going to be OK.
(Even Joel Best, statistics at his fingertips, admits that his own wife
inspected their family's candy haul before proclaiming it safe for human
consumption.)
When you think about it, the stories are not too different from campfire
bone-chillers and the Grimms at their bloody best. The characters, the
tone, the moralsall writ large and hot-wired to our greatest fears
as parents and protectorsadd up to classic lore. An unknown adult
corrupts an innocent youth. A naive child receives a poisoned apple.
As a parent, I want desperately to protect my children as they make
their way into adulthood. But most days, I know I can't really do all
that much. Most days, I can only take a deep breath and let go little
by little, trusting, hoping and praying that the world will treat my
children gently.
But on Halloween day, I have society's wholehearted permission to indulge
my every fear, to put all my back muscles into maintaining the wall
between the world and my children. Suddenly all the vague threats recede
and there is only the Halloween maniac, the stomachache, the Hershey
Bar full of shrapnel to bravely repel from advancing. And I can. This
is the beauty of Halloween, as Joel Best will attest. We always triumph.
We always survive.
But is there a price for this annual, faux face-off with our fears?
What am I teaching my children? To be paranoid and suspicious?
Maybe not. Not if I don't go too far. Spooked as I may be, I still
let my kids trick or treat near home. When we cart the kids to the mall
for store-to-store trick or treating (as many parents now do), the message
is loud and clear: The only safe place for a kid is an adult-sanctified,
commercialized place where there is a security guard at every exit.
But a few words of warning couldn't hurt. It's all part of the ritual.
We wring our hands, bark a few orders, confiscate a couple of Pixie
Sticks. They dress up like hippies and tarts, skulk around in the dark
and gorge on candy corn. And Halloween remains, with annual tweaks to
costumes and horror stories, is as it should be, for all of usa
rush of scary thrills, fierce love and chocolate highs.
Copyright © Salon, October 1999