Remember being a kid at Halloween? You'd spend weeks coming up with the perfect costume idea, get dressed up on Oct. 31, and then holler "trick-or-treat" until your pillowcase was filled with bite-sized Oh Henry bars and packets of Skittles. It was the best non-stat holiday of the year.
Now imagine paying a visit to your dentist the day after Halloween to give him your loot for the measly return of $1 per pound of candy. Kills the whole thing, doesn't it?
Halloween Candy Buy Back is a new, harebrained idea by a coalition of dentists south of the border.
Since dentists are behind this, one would think the intention is to prevent tooth decay.
If only that were the case.
In fact, the candy will be sent to U.S. troops stationed in Iraq.
Try explaining this one to your kids: domestic tooth decay? Baaaad. Overseas tooth decay? Goood.
If you don't think that message is mixed-up enough, consider the fact that some dentists are running their own independent buy-back programs.
One in Massachusetts is buying candy off of kids in exchange for coupons for ice cream and pizza.
If you don't want your kids' teeth to rot, cut trick-or-treating time down to just an hour and make them ration candy. Why give them another reason to hate the dentist?
Dakshana Bascaramurty