If you’re like me, you have mixed feelings about Halloween. On the one hand, it’s a fun little holiday where you can dress up your kids in all the different outfits of occupations you wanted to be when you grew up like doctor, call girl, and werewolf. You also get to let your kids run around the neighborhood dodging traffic for a couple of hours while you do more important things, like dress up in a sexy costume and get ignored by your spouse.

Of course, there are drawbacks to Halloween. First, it’s expected that you’ll give away candy to other people’s children. You don’t even like giving candy to your own children! And then sometimes you get those teenagers who are way too old for Halloween and think they’re entitled to candy just because they poured some fake blood on their t-shirts. (At least you hope it’s fake blood.)

Now you could try hiding in your basement or pretending you’re not home—or actually not be home—but then you risk having your property egged and toilet papered and painted pink (I’m trying to start a national trend with that last one). And what happens if you only purchase enough candy for 30 kids and 60 show up? Or worse—you forgot all about Halloween together, and the only candy the store had left was off-brand stuff like Horshey’s Malk Choco-like Substitute and packages of Ms—just Ms; the M&Ms are long gone.

Fear not, boils and ghouls! Having either forgotten the candy or had my wife eat it all three days before Halloween for years, I know exactly what it’s like to be short on Halloween treats. That’s why I’ve come up with a series of do-it-yourself goodies you can assemble from things at home to help stave off the eggers and TP-ers. Read on for a frightfully brilliant list of ghetto ways to get yourself through another Halloween trick-or-treat when the candy runs dry.

• Money always works. Of course, this is probably going to cost you a bit more than candy would as giving anything less than a dollar is going to get your house covered in more unborn baby chickens than not giving anything at all.
• Nothing says Halloween quite like thick, juicy steaks. I know that if I were a kid, I’d be thrilled to have a nice Porterhouse dropped in my treat bag.
• You’ve been meaning to donate those old books to charity. Just give them away on Halloween night and use them to educate the future generation in how to be just as lame as you!
• Kids don’t get enough veggies in their diet. Whip out a bag of frozen peas from the freezer and start pelting those kids until they run away crying.
• You know all those action figures you have sitting in a box in your attic? I’m sure kids today would still appreciate G.I. Joes and Barbies, even if they are missing a few limbs. And if they are, paint on a bit of fake blood to really freak them out.
• Is your wife hot? If she just happens to “accidentally” answer the door naked, I think that counts as a treat.
• Studies show that kids as young as five are now sexually active! Do your part to fight teenage pregnancy and STDs by handing out condoms instead of candy this Halloween.
• One in ten houses still has candy left over from last Halloween. One in two kids can’t tell the difference!
• At the same time, Playboy magazines never get stale.
• If you still have last Sunday’s newspaper, you could clip out coupons for 35 cents off two bags of $6.00 candy to give away.
• Bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon! Or does that only work on dogs?
• Confuse the kids by giving out Valentine’s Day cards instead of candy and insisting it’s already February.
• If you’re desperate, you can break into your own kid’s room and start giving away his or her collection of Pokémon cards. Your kid will hate you forever, but they’d start doing that eventually anyway!
• And if you’re really desperate and have nothing left to give away, you can start taxing candy from the kids who have a lot and giving it to everyone else. I mean, if it works for the government…

Everyone have a happy and safe Halloween! And all you pretty ladies out there be sure to stop by my house if you want an extra-special treat. Heh heh.

I’m making s’mores.

Hey, get your heads out of the gutter!