"Trick or Treat!"
Mr. Weber towered over the five toddlers darkening his doorstep like a loaded guillotine. He paused long enough for the silence to turn awkward, and then made a poisonous gurgling noise in the back of his throat as he dropped candies into the children's open bags, like a bombardier depositing ordinance onto the rooftops of a sleeping city. The children shifted nervously in their costumes, displaying persistent smiles of simpleton innocence. A sick chill raced across Mr. Weber's trunk as if he had stepped in excrement. One of the children - he reckoned it was the detestable Nguyen youth from three doors south - announced excitedly, "I'm a pirate!" as he fanned out the tails of his preposterous black silk jerkin.
"I doubt that with all seriousity!" Mr. Weber growled dropping a piece of Osker's Hardkandy into the last sack in the line.
"What?"
"I said, Pah! This is a wretched rag that you obviously purchased from a rack at the drug superstore or gasoline station mart, and it is a poor representation of the garb of the classic brigand!"
"…What?"
"Your attire, boy! This…costume which you use to extort sweetmeats from me, is cheap, shoddy of craftsmanship, and does little to honor the memory of the sea lords of yore! It is a sham! As are you!"
"…What?"
"Ach!" Mr. Weber boomed and hurled the door closed with all his might.

Halloween!
Why did Mr. Weber have to endure Halloween? The entire charade made him want to expectorate the blackest ooze from the filthiest corner of his intestinal core. Here again was another example! Madison Avenue had infiltrated the brain-dead intellectual bayou of America, and convinced an entire populace that for a lone night, expensive sugar food-stuffs were to be handed out, free-of-charge, to poorly organized rabble upon the mere utterance of a ridiculous slogan. And he was forced to comply or face retribution! Preposterous!
"Trick or Treat!"
Was this not an outright threat? Was this not sincere pre-admittance of an intent to commit a crime? It was insanity! Would that his father were alive! The first delinquent who darkened the doorstep with a demand for a "treat" would be met by the stinging pop of an open palm to the ear. A ruptured ear drum; blood in the nose; a torn septum…The example would be cast in stone, and this nonsensical American tradition would perish from the Weber doorstep like a wild donkey on train tracks in the desert.
…As it should!

Within nano-moments, a fresh set of giggling brats crowded onto the Weber porch and filled the air with the rustling rabble of rebellion. In the next instant the doorbell tolled anew, blasting out in three redundant and completely disrespectful tones. Mr. Weber threw up his hands in exasperation. Where was his wife? Why must he endure these endless interruptions? "Anna!" he boomed in exasperation.
"What is it, dear?" his wife called from the television room.
The doorbell rang out again.
"Anna!" Mr. Weber shrieked. "Do you not hear this?"
"I'm in the t.v. room, dear! I'm fixing Titus' costume!"
"…Then I suppose I'm expected to deal with this lot, as I have dealt with every lot for the past quarter hour!"
"That would be nice, dear."
"Bah!" Mr. Weber growled and retrieved his candy sack from the floor by the door.
For the umpteenth time that evening, the new mob met Mr. Weber's opening door with a poorly coordinated shout of "Trick or Treat!"
Mr. Weber sneered with distrust. This was an older crew. Some of the children appeared to be of a teen age. Mr. Weber could make no guess as to the meaning of their garb. There was a girl wearing pigtails, sporting cheap whorish drawn-on freckles and the fake buck teeth of a tenth-generation Appalachian bastard. For all her care and self-decorative craft, the child still looked the product of incest! Another boy had darkened his face with burnt cork and was apparently attempting to imitate a negro horror demon.
"Ach!" Mr. Weber hacked in response to the giggling throng and their nonsensical costumes. He kicked open the screen door and tossed a fist-full Osker's HardKandy onto the ground like feed for goats. The children reached to catch flying treats but most of the candies scattered on the concrete like dice. "Hey, why'dja do that?" one of the boys whined.
"On to your knees and pick it up!" Mr. Weber roared through the screen. "It's all you'll get from me."
The children seemed stunned. One of the mongrels picked a candy from the ground and held it before the tiny eye-holes of his mask. He resembled an apparition made of bark. "What is this stuff?"
"Stuff! The Webers do not award stuff to the tricking and treating hordes. Lo, the Webers bring the tinge of class to your route tonight." He held one of the marble-sized candies up to the dirty orange light of the porch light. "This is the finest candy that can be bought; a treat smelted in the confectionery furnaces of Bremerhaven, concocted from the purest chemicals hauled with shovel and crane from the darkest folds of mother earth! This is Osker's Hardkandy! And children in my country know no greater joy than that caused by a clot of Osker's Hardcandy infiltrating the gizzard!"
"Gross! It looks like laxative!"
"You will show me respect by crawling on my porch to retrieve my generosity!"
"Yuck! It's like cough medicine or something!"
The children dropped the candies and dispersed into the night. "You're weird," one of the girls proclaimed over her shoulder.
"Leave my home at once!" Mr. Weber boomed after them, "Or I will have charges of grand larceny drawn up against the whole of you!!"
"I thought you and your wife shot yourself in your bunker!" one of the boys snickered from the darkness.
Mr. Weber picked a piece of Osker's Hardcandy from his porch, hurled it with all his might at the children, and screamed, "GOD NEEDS TO FLUSH!!"

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