by Alyssa Pena | staff writer

It’s almost seven o’clock on October 31, and a little girl is about to walk up to the door of her next door neighbor’s house in hopes of getting a piece or two of candy. She rings the doorbell, yells trick or treat, and gets a couple of Starburst and a Reese’s cup. As she says “thank you” and turns to leave, the little girl runs face first into a very tall figure, dressed in an all black Morphsuit. She smiles and waves at the figure. Surprisingly, the figure waves back before advancing forward to get candy for themselves as well.

You already know what this means. It’s Halloween season.

I absolutely love Halloween. I just can’t get enough of the pumpkin spiced everything, the spooky skeletons hanging on every door in my neighborhood, and the constant smell of fall everywhere. It’s heaven to me. But the one thing about Halloween that gets me the most excited is trick or treating.

I can’t wait for the time when my doorbell is ringing off the hook, and I get to hand out candy to the little greedy hands of children in fairy princess and superhero costumes. I remember when I used to be like them, toting around my little Jack-o-Lantern in my yellow Belle costume and awful plastic heels. Those were the days.

I still want to go trick or treating but, like most teens, I don’t have the time or energy to round up a costume, put it on, grab a bag to collect goodies, and head out into the night for a meager stash of low-quality candy. So as a result, I stay inside to watch Hocus Pocus and eat the leftover candy that we don’t give to trick or treaters.

Let’s face it, trick or treating doesn’t seem have the hype that it used to anymore. It’s not that we don’t care about the candy, in truth, we teens actually relish the idea of getting free food, but it’s just that trick or treating as a high schooler is frowned upon by society. Going up to doors on Halloween in an old, ill-fitting Spider-Man costume with a pillow case to hold your stash isn’t exactly what your neighbors are expecting to see. They expect to see the cute, chubby faces of the future generation in their Elsa and Captain America get-ups, not the pimply-faced and stress-ridden ones of today’s high schoolers.

In a perfect world, it’s not ideal for teens to go out on Halloween and mingle with the little kids in hopes of sweetening the deal with some candy. I guess most teenagers think that they would be better off buying candy from the store, or just want to trick or treat for the sake of scaring little kids, but that’s far from reality. We love the kids- sure it’s fun to give a few jump scares here and there, but mostly we want the feeling that we used to have when we once rang doorbells and shouted “trick or treat” to get sweets.

Not to mention, it’s free.

But, in the words of Eric Forman from “That 70s Show” , we are too old to trick or treat, and too young to die.

However, there are still a few teens that go out and trick or treat, and that’s absolutely fine. I encourage that. Just because we are deemed too old to trick or treat, doesn’t mean we should be barred from doing so. This iconic action of our culture should not be limited to one single age group. It should be fun to dress up, run around at night, and accumulate at least a pound of candy.

I say go trick or treating, you deserve it. Given all of the responsibilities that have been thrown at us since we were in middle school, we need to relieve a little stress and go out and grab some sweets. It’s only fair. Go out there in your Spider-Man suit, your grim reaper robe, your Michael Myers mask, or in your old Dorothy costume, just to achieve a goal that has yet to be attained by the teens of our generation. Set an example, and show that having fun is not limited to any age.