Halloween Candy: Delicious, but Dangerous?

Staff Writer: Paige Haring

Candy is well-known treat around the world. The one holiday we celebrate candy is Halloween. That is the time when we take candy off doorsteps to old folks that are dumb enough to leave a bowl of candy out and hope kids will take one.

Trick or Treating is an experience loved by many and is known for spending time with family and friends. Obviously, we do it for the candy and to show off our cool costumes. One thing kids should always look out for is opened candy. There are crazy people that like to hide things in candy to hurt children. As my mom always told me she’d check my candy. Even though most of the time she would take her favorite candies, she would still take the opened ones out and throw them away.

Then, I started wondering if anyone else has had bad Halloween candy encounters. So, I thought it would be a great idea to interview others about their encounters with Halloween candy. I talked to Octo Wood and asked him, “What’s a Halloween candy story that you still remember to this day?” He replied with, “I remember it was seven years ago. There was a house that was red and white in my neighborhood, and I thought it looked like a barn. Though back then I was just looking for candy to stuff my face, so I walked up and rang the doorbell. A man opened the door and gave us candy out of an orange bucket. Just as I was about to walk off the doorstep he shouted, ‘Wait!’ He put down the orange bucket and handed out Skinny Pop Popcorn. I did not know what it was at the time, and I do not really like popcorn to this day. I threw it in my huge bag of candy and when I got home a few hours later, I took it out of the bag to try the popcorn and threw up. I did not know what was in that popcorn bag, but it was disgusting. After that I never went to this guy’s house again.”

This next spooky candy experience comes from Torrie Wilson. I decided to start with, “Have you ever had any issues with Halloween candy or people who have put something in your candy?” Torrie had replied with, “I have had someone slip something into my candy bag before. About two years ago I was out trick or treating with a few friends. My friends and I were talking about a new show that came out when suddenly we saw a guy that looked like he was in his late 40s. He was carrying a trash bag filled with candy and something else we did not know at the time. We thought nothing of it and let him give us candy because it is Halloween. We walked around for a few more minutes but then realized the same guy was following us. We kept walking and thought he might be looking for more kids to give candy to. Then my friend felt uncomfortable, so we cut through someone’s yard. He also cut through the same yard, so we started to run. We ran until we went into the woods, but while running, I heard metal. I turned on my flashlight on my phone and saw a black box and assumed it was some sort of tracker. My friends were scared and so was I. We ran and took the long way home to my friend’s house. After we got inside, he told his mom what happened. She told us to ‘check the candy bags.’ One of my friends found a sharp metal object sticking out of his KitKat bar but nothing else was found in our candy. We still felt unsafe, so we decided not to eat any of the candy. I will never forget that night.’’