How Old is too Old?

In the fight for candy on Halloween, high schoolers should have an equal chance at a bag full of candy

Art+by+Mackenzie+Figueroa

Art by Mackenzie Figueroa

Halloween is all about pumpkin carving, haunted houses and of course, trick-or-treating. Traveling door to door for candy in a spirited disguise from dusk till dark is an event that everyone should experience at least once. But when should this tradition end? Some may answer high school, I on the other hand, disagree.

As long as you have a good costume, an appetite for candy, and the endurance to trek from one house to another, trick-or-treating should be acceptable even into your high school years.

I love Halloween, and as a senior am still not ready to give up trick-or-treating. Since freshman year, a group of friends and I have spent the day together creating our costumes and then moving across Fenton, filling our candy bags until they’re too heavy to carry.

There is, however, always that one resident who gives high school students the evil eye as they place a candy bar into their bag.

Just imagine it, four super cute junior girls, dressed in their awesome homemade Crayola Crayon costumes, enjoying the act of trick-or-treating. They pull away from the pack of others that had formed after traveling from one house to another.

Suddenly, the juniors find themselves walking up and ringing the doorbell of an unknown neighbor’s home, alone, no other trick-or-treaters to accompany them.

“Trick-or-treat!” The girls yell in unison. The door opens and a look of disapproval spreads across the woman’s face. Before handing them some candy, the woman asks the juniors, “Aren’t you girls a little old to be trick-or-treating?”

Immediately taken back by the bluntness of such a question, the friends look to each other before generating a good-humored response, “Well how old do you think we are?”

After admiring the beautifully constructed crayon costumes, probably also taking into account the height and wit of the four girls, the woman answers, “Um . . . Seventh, eighth grade.”

Pleased by the woman’s assumption, the junior girls smile, accept the candy, and tell their neighbor, “Good guess! Yes, let’s say eighth grade.” Before leaving the dimly lit porch, even more excited to visit the next street.

Yes, this experience was embarrassing and I still have my red Crayola Crayon costume from last year. No high school student should be proud of being mistaken for middle schoolers like my friends and I were because someone thinks they’re too old to participate.

Next week I will be painting my face yellow and dressing up like a minion from “Despicable Me”, raiding the subdivisions of Fenton for candy with my friends, celebrating Oct. 31 how it should be celebrated: with a bag full of candy at the end of the night.