You need to tip him in Kit Kat bars to get your package, but it is worth it.
I don't often read advice columns, as a matter of fact I never read them. But once in a while something bubbles up through a Facebook feed or through Twitter. This morning I happened across a Dear Prudence column on Slate. The one percent wonders why we in the ninety-nine percent are stockpiling torches and sharpening pitchforks...this letter to Dear Prudence is probably the best example as to why.
The person writing the letter, using all the racist dog whistles available wrote:
Dear Prudence,
I live in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the country, but on one of the more “modest” streets—mostly doctors and lawyers and family business owners. (A few blocks away are billionaires, families with famous last names, media moguls, etc.) I have noticed that on Halloween, what seems like 75 percent of the trick-or-treaters are clearly not from this neighborhood. Kids arrive in overflowing cars from less fortunate areas. I feel this is inappropriate. Halloween isn’t a social service or a charity in which I have to buy candy for less fortunate children. Obviously this makes me feel like a terrible person, because what’s the big deal about making less fortunate kids happy on a holiday? But it just bugs me, because we already pay more than enough taxes toward actual social services. Should Halloween be a neighborhood activity, or is it legitimately a free-for-all in which people hunt down the best candy grounds for their kids?
—Halloween for the 99 Percent
The kids are
clearly not from around here, they arrive on
overflowing cars from less fortunate areas. Now, I do not know this for sure, but I would be willing to bet that this is a white neighborhood, and this terrible person is complaining about black children trick or treating on her street.
I have to give Prudence some credit here, her answer was spot on:
Your whine makes me kind of wish that people from the actual poor side of town come this year not with scary costumes but with real pitchforks. Stop being callous and miserly and go to Costco, you cheapskate, and get enough candy to fill the bags of the kids who come one day a year to marvel at how the 1 percent live.
Here is how I handle trick or treating in the Andersen household. Before Halloween, I buy a couple large bags of candy. If a kid comes to my door, I give the child candy. When I run out of candy, I turn my porch light off. At no time to I ask where they are from or what neighborhood they live in, nor do I ask if they came here in an overflowing car. If I can bring a little bit of happiness into a child's life by spending twenty bucks on some candy, I will - and I don't care if they are from my neighborhood or from another neighborhood.