Quote:
Originally Posted by mynameisjim
It was all those scare stories about razor blades in candy back in the 80's. But honestly, how often did that actually happen, if ever?
Secondly, how can you even put razor blades in candy? Most everything is in sealed packages, even the minis. Fruits and vegetables get picked in some god forsaken 3rd world country, shipped over here and plunked down on a table in the grocery store and are never packaged or protected yet people never wonder if those are tainted.
It's the same with kidnapping. 99% of cases involve a family member. The number of children taken by strangers is around 100/year yet people think it happens constantly so they never let their kids out.
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The 80's? No friend, those stories were actually carried forward from the late 60's and 70's, maybe even earlier. The reports of razor blades weren't about candy, they were about apples. Back then some people used to give out apples to kids instead of candy, many gave apples from their own apple trees in their yard.
In fact back then kids used to yell "HALLOWEEN APPLES!" as often as "trick or treat" when they came to the door.
To this day I still don't know if it ever really happened, but many back then used to talk about how someone managed to hide razor blades inside apples. In my early years of trick or treating some of our nieghbors gave out candy apples, and everyone's mom (including mine) would CUT THOSE APPLES into smaller pieces in order to check for razor blades, believe it or not. Whether it really happened or not the worry was there.
In fact, one or two houses in my area used to give out little bags of homemade popcorn, and many of us kids had to throw that stuff away at the behest of our parents. "NO HOMEMADE STUFF, IT MIGHT BE POISONED!"... unless you could tell them EXACTLY which house you got it from. If they knew the people then it was okay... but really, who the hell wanted popcorn? The real prize was the houses who gave out canned drinks, bags of chips, and anything chocolate. The rest was mostly filler --- rockets, gum, carmels, or those really chewy candies with the little bats on the wrapper. Then there was the suckers, hard candies, etc, all the crap that you ate last (or didn't eat at all). All that stuff was safe, but my mom still examined everything and checked out all the wrappers for signs of tampering before we could dive in.
I think these days more and more parents are just keeping their kids home and avoiding the whole mess, which is a shame because through all the rumors and fears of candy-tamerping and kids being abducted or hit by cars etc etc etc... I do have a lot of really great memories of halloween and walking the neighborhood with my big pillowcase and costume hauling in gobs of goodies.