Grown-ups can have fun too… right?
Trick-or-treating is undeniably a kids’ game, but some adults participate regardless. Surely we all have memories of the episode of King of the Hill where Hank and his friends walk out into the street in their childhood costumes, tights and all, with excess skin leaking out of every stitch. Want to be “that guy?” If not, pay close attention to these tips for trick-or-treating as an adult.
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Do:
Find a costume that fits. Amazon has a great supply of adult Halloween costumes, including party hits, like a giant Trojan condom wrapper or a Reno 911 uniform that comes with the shortest of short shorts. Toys “R” Us is not the place to pick a costume. Nobody wants to tear their pants in half when they bend over to pick up a Tootsie Roll. There are so many alternatives, why would you do it to yourself in the first place?
Another thing to keep in mind is to be courteous and remember that you were a kid once too. Just because someone leaves a bowl full of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups on their front porch doesn’t mean a corrupt adult brain has fair game to everything in it. Save some for the kids, because they don’t have cars or long legs to carry them to the store on Nov. 1 to get bulk bags of candy for a third of the price.
Other than that, make sure to have fun. If you have the confidence to knock on someone’s door as a grown adult to ask for candy, do it without a drop of shame. Did you get a Jurassic Park suit for Halloween? Crawl into it and let it be known to the world that your new identity for the night is a dinosaur, not a person in their early twenties who has a calculus test the following week.
Don’t:
The first obvious “do not” would be to not go trick-or-treating at all. It’s a bittersweet reality, but you can’t trick-or-treat as an adult for the same reasons you can’t order off of the kids’ menu or continue to visit your pediatrician. There’s a small group of people who will undoubtedly fail to heed this warning, but there are ways to make adult trick-or-treating more appropriate.
One important “do not” to keep in mind on Halloween is time. You might be up past midnight fueled by Red Bull, but that doesn’t mean the people handing out candy will be. Knocking on doors any time past 10 or 11 p.m. is off limits. You’re certainly not going to get candy from anyone you’ve woken past that time.
Being creepy is another thing to avoid, which is surprisingly easy when you’re running around in a costume and makeup in the middle of the night.
Adult trick-or-treating can definitely be fun for some, but keeping guidelines is essential. If adults enjoy trick-or-treating, by all means do it. Halloween is the one night where anyone can be whatever or whoever they want, so take advantage of that and grip the world with unabashed confidence.
Masen Matthews can be reached at [email protected]