Don't dress as a Buzzkill for Halloween

It's Halloween time again. Time to dress up, trick or treat, torch cars, get white Pan-cake makeup smeared all over you from drunkenly making out with someone dressed as Dead Michael Jackson, or whatever creams your Twinkie. (I DON'T JUDGE.)



For us parents, it means watching our kids go out into the snow (yes, SNOW) as, say, Captain Kirk and the cutest little ladybug princess EVAR and come home with a queen-sized pillow case full of sugary goodness. Before the night arrives, I would like to make a proclamation:



If you are a parent who lets your child have one piece of candy and then makes them throw the rest of it out/give it to the homeless/sell it to the dentist for a buck a pound/burn it in a Christian bonfire--

YOU ARE LAME.

(And don't try to deny it. I saw that dentist on Channel 2 this morning. She cleared like 500 pounds of candy from kids turning in hard-won goods last year. That's at least a couple hundred really bummed out little Spider Men, by my count.)

Just because you're a parent doesn't mean you have to be an asshole, too. Yes, the bag of candy weighs more than your children do. Yeah, it's more candy than they need to eat in a year by a factor of four. Yes, it'll rot out the inside of their head IF THEY EAT IT ALL. But they won't. Unless, of course, you tell them they can't have it. Then they'll eat it all and then snort all the granulated sugar in your house as a chaser. Have fun with that.

Here's how we rock Halloween, Polito-style. On Halloween night, I tell the kids: For this night only, it's a free-for-all. That's right, take that bag and stuff as much candy into your piehole as will possibly fit. And they try, oh yes they do. But you know what? They usually can't eat more than 10 "fun-size" pieces of candy anyway before they start to ache.

On November 1 and thereafter, they get one piece of candy a day. That lasts a week, maybe 10 days. And then you know what they do? They FORGET ABOUT IT. That's right. They get all caught up in time off for Thanksgiving and the tidal wave of booty they're going to get in December and they say, "Halloween candy, wha?" And then it's done. And you toss the candy. And they don't spend the rest of the year thinking about what a dick you were about the Halloween candy because you had to go all Alice Waters on their asses.

Try it. Trust me. And there are plenty of other opportunities in parenting to be the Buzzkill. Don't make it your permanent Halloween costume. Embrace the candy, and make it a fun-size evening for everyone. Thank you and good night.