Trick-or-treating: How old is too old?

Halloween is fast approaching, blowing in on the cool autumn winds. With Halloween comes the excitement of costumes, parties, and candy gallore. But teens may be in a tricky situation regarding their treats. There's no defined cut-off age limit for trick-or-treating, but wherever it is, the general consensus is that teens, especially 15 and older, are above that line. When tromping around neighborhoods lugging pillowcases to be filled, more and more often they end up trudging back home, sacks woefully light, the victims of age-descriminating candy givers. They may be a little old, but candy tastes just as good at higher ages, so often resourcefull students will find ways to grab the treats anyways. The easiest way is of course to play babysitter. A younger child acts as a free-pass for candy, as people are much kinder towards the caring older sibling than they are towards a greedy teenager. When no small sibling is available, often it falls upon the smallest member of the group to take up the duty. Choose a childish, conealing costume, like a ghost, and any vertically challenged person can help bring in the candy. Of course, teens always find other ways to humiliate themselves to get what they want. Originality goes a long way towards convinving candy-misers to open their bowls. Improvised skits, songs, stories; all will be attempted this year in the quest for candy. But of course the best hastily slapped together plans still fail. When that happens, there's always the bacjup plan. Head over to wal-mart, buy your own bags of candy, and settle down somewhere with some scary movies.

Driving : Chains of Freedom

It seems like the biggest goal in any teens life, the biggest leap of liberty, is the drivers license. We strive for it, put in countless hours of extra class-time, observation, and driving just to get it. It seems to represent freedom, the ability to go where you want, when you want, to listen the the music you like at whatever volume you wish (generally significantly louder than your parents like), and really, just be a licensed person. Theres something reassuring, knowing that you officially exist now, that you have a proof of ID handy on you at all times. But besides the physical license, starting to drive is not necessarily all it's cracked up to be. First off, unfortunately, they generally don't hand out cars at the DMV to go with your first license. So even though you legally can drive, you don't have the wheels to physically do it. Your parents have cars of course, but a parents carinvariably comes with strict limits. You need to ask every time you need it, let your parents know exactly where you're going and for how long, and your driving priveledges can always be threatened to make you raise your grades or do the chores. The next big goal then turns into getting a car of your own, which you assure yourself will provide total freedom. But once you do, whether from hard work and shrewd buying or just a large amount of luck, you find once again it comes with just as much responsibility and labor as freedom. Even though you have your own car now, it is highly unlikely that your parents will simply let you leave whenever you want and not ask any questions or set any curfews. And besides that, there's the gas. Even though our parents have been complaining abut it for years, it's still a shock how expensive that gas is. If you have managed to go through life before now without a job or income, you'll find that any extra cash you have is soon burned away in the engine of your car. You'll end up needing a job to keep the gas flowing, so when you do drive you're not going "wherever and whenever you want", you're going to work to pay for the gas that you need to drive to work again tomorrow. Or you can beg and plead with your parents for the money, but if you're dependant on them for your driving ability, you're just back where you started. Overall, getting a license and a car brings just as many responsibilities and limits as it does freedom and liberty. Of course, that shouldn't stop anybody from getting one anyways as soon as they possible can.