The trick is giving poison and calling it a treat. The treats are full of sugar, which is toxic to human beings of any age. The poison may take years to affect the system to produce diabetes, cardiac arrest or liver problems. I struggled with this for years at Halloween, as I wanted not to poison the kids, but not to disappoint them, either.
Last year only one teenager appeared and went to one door only, across the street from me. This year I bought no candy and hoped no one would knock. The kids next door, the most likely to knock, went to parties instead, so I had no conflict.
A local dentist, only one of many in this area, offered to buy back kids’ candy for $1 per pound up to 5 pounds. A newspaper article quoted him as saying that he wanted kids to receive candy, just not to eat it. He was evidently not looking to profit from filling cavities, as he said that he would then send the candy to our troops in Iraq.
I found this very funny. Bad for the children, so send it to the soldiers, who could call in sick from a toothache and thus avoid fighting in the field. Perhaps we should pursue this as an approach to avoid war and thus achieve peace.
“Shock and awe” described my original reaction to the amount of various types of sugar found in chocolate bars. I had thought to recommend some for purchase rather than others with more sugar, but when I stood in the aisle at the closest drugstore reading labels, all the bars were loaded, so I gave up, opting for a discrete retreat from the battlefield.
Of course, that term, shock and awe, was used during the Gulf War and is typically used to describe only the very beginning of the invasion, as in Iraq, not the larger war or ensuing insurgency. However, the term “rapid dominance” is a military doctrine based on the use of overwhelming power and a spectacular display of force to paralyze the enemies’ perception of the battlefield and destroy its will to fight.
The doctrine was written by Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade in 1996 and is the desired state of helplessness or lack of will in the enemy. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were given as examples of shock and awe.
The aforementioned well-meaning dentist is merely passing the buck to the faraway soldiers, who will never appear at his door. However, the image of their returning and urging the dentist to eat the candy himself makes me smile.
Byrna Porter Weir was born and grew up in Houlton, where her parents were portrait photographers. She now lives in Rochester, N.Y.
