Criminalized Apples
Come Halloween, who among us has not occasionally felt the urge to embed razor blades in crisp ripe apples, dip those apples in yummy candy or caramel coatings and serve them up on sticks to eager ghosts, goblins, witches and princesses?! Or simply sprinkle roach powder on fresh popped popcorn? But then you think:
1. Ok, but too much work.
2. Homemade stuff is easily traceable back to its source.
3. I’ll come off like some homemade hippie cheapskate even before I’m arrested and my house will probably get egged.
4. The candy industry, in the face of a surge in homemade hippie cheapskate types in the late 60s/early 70s, managed to convince the American public that anyone handing out homemade treats on Halloween is either:
a. A serial killer
b. Homemade hippie cheapskate type
Thus, even if you do decide to go to the trouble of doctoring you own homemade treats, most kids are trained to throw the stuff out and call the police on your striped and drawstring panted ass.

So, what’s a Halloween tamperer to do? Sadly, there’s not much that can be done. I know, I know, it’s tempting to give in and just waddle down to the local Duance Reades and buy a bag of mini O’Henrys or Snickers. Sure, it’s easy and anonymous enough to buy the candy and use one of Uncle Ed’s (dirty) insulin needles to shoot a bit of “I’m sleepy” juice into the heart of a Three Musketeer bar. But is it truly feasible and worthwhile? Let’s consider:
1. Where’s the fun in doing that?
2. How will anyone ever know it’s you? On any given Halloween there are about 3 million Milky Ways floating around—no one could ever trace one poisonous bar to one poisonous person. How will you ever get your 15 minutes of fame and ripped from the headlines tv emulation?
3. Little do most prospective candy tamperers know it, but the same candy industry that criminalized homemade Halloween treats also invented impervious candy. If you’re a first-time candy tamperer, you may not know it, but what looks to the naked eye a lot like a lump of variegated corn syrup wrapped in brightly colored paper is really a “smart” nugget. “Factory sealed” does not just mean that the wrapper has been machined glued shut in a factory manned by underpaid workers who just lost their pensions and health benefits and who would, therefore, never in a million years have any motivation to sabotage their company by tampering with its product. No, my friends, “factory sealed” means hermetically sealed in a wrapper that only looks like paper, but is really a micro-shield impervious to needles, gases or even radiation of any kind. The only method of penetrating these wrappers is with the use of fat little fingers eager for more, more, more!

The only thing for a would-be candy tamperer/apple trapper/popcorn poisoner to do is relent and give up on the whole urge. The Mars company and others like it, through their wisdom and care, have made it impossible for the average ne’er do well to ne’er do well. The only way our children can be harmed now on Halloween is via the traditional twin pillars of sugar and fat. The only thing left for those of us who prefer trick to treats is to give up on the whole treat giving business all together. Get out of the house and do a little trick or treating yourself. Dress up like a homemade hippie cheapskate handing out homemade treats. That’ll scare the crap out of them.