The Best Part of Halloween? Stealing Candy From Your Kids and Using It to Extort Them

I have never been a big Halloween person. As a kid, I went trick-or-treating because that what everyone else and also because that’s where all the candy was. And while I’ve attended—and even thrown—Halloween parties as an adult, I always partied with a purpose. (When single, my purpose was “this is where all the women will be, so I should be there too.”)

The “costume” for the party I attended last weekend is a perfect synopsis of my general feeling towards this day. Pictured below is me as a “generic ’90s rapper from New York City.” And by “generic ’90s rapper from New York City” I mean “lethargic Pittsburgh nigga who literally just picked some clothes out his closet and called it a costume.”

Anyway, in a few hours, my 2-year-old daughter will circle the blocks around our neighborhood in search of candy and other assorted goodies. She will be dressed as a pumpkin. (She has also been instructed by me to spit at any adult who offers her candy corn.) Joining her will be my 12-year-old niece, (maybe) my wife, my cousin Huny, her kids, and perhaps some other straggler kid(s). I will be at home, distributing candy—Snickers, Reese’s cups and Skittles—and scaring white people with my “bearded Pittsburgh nigga on a stoop” costume.

When my daughter gets back home, my wife and I will take her bags of candy—the bags she shuffled and sprinted and slaved up and down the block for—and. well, that will be that. She will, perhaps, get a piece or two today and tomorrow, but her candy consumption will be limited. I’d say maybe five percent of the candy she gets will actually go into her mouth. The rest will be ours.

Maybe we’ll eat some of it. Maybe we’ll put some of it in tiny bowls when we host Thanksgiving next month or a game night in December. Maybe we’ll just use it as cruel parental totems for the next few months; extorting a week of good behavior in exchange for a miniature Twix bar. Either way, Halloween is nothing but a secret candy comeup for NWKs (niggas with kids). Especially when you have small children, and you already don’t give them any candy and they have absolutely no say over anything. They are powerless!

And since they have no candy rights, they become your candy couriers. Your connect for candy reups. And yes, I keep making drug references because this is some cartel-ass-shit.

In summary, I now like Halloween. Yay Halloween!