Halloween is tomorrow so yesterday I caved and decided to go buy some candy to give to all those raggedy-ass children that will show up at my door. I hate Halloween precisely for that reason—that I’m somehow obligated to buy candy with my own money to give to kids I have never seen before just because it’s October 31st. You want your kids to have candy on Halloween? Go buy it yourself. I have better things to do with my money…like, I don’t know, buy candy for myself.

So I say even though I dragged my ass to the supermarket on Sunday and begrudging bought the cheapest bag of candy I could find: a $20 bag of fun-sized chocolate candies. Twenty-f*cking-dollars. For 155 pieces of which I will most likely get to eat zero. GAH! That really pisses me off!

You know what? F*ck this. I’m not going to give any candy away this year. This year is my year to take a stand for what I believe in: Halloween candy is for the people who buy it. I bought those 155 pieces of chocolatey deliciousness, so why shouldn’t I get to enjoy them? I do when I buy candy on any of the 364 days of the year, right? October 31st shouldn’t be any different.

I’ve spent all day trying to figure out how I can get away with being the Grinch Who Stole Halloween without actually being known as the Grinch Who Stole Halloween—a Grinch on the DL, basically—and have managed to come up with two plans.

Anti-Halloween Plan #1: Make it Look Like I’m not Home

This one is a no-brainer: I’ll park my car on the street instead of in my garage, turn off all the lights in my house so that it looks like no one is home, and then spend the rest of evening pretending to be a method actor prepping for a role in a movie about post-Hurricane Maria life in Puerto Rico. No one is going to waste time visiting a house that is empty! It’s a school night! Haha! This plan is perfect!

…Wait a minute…Aren’t pedophiles supposed to do stuff like this to dissuade children from trick-or-treating at their houses? So by making it look like I wasn’t home in order to keep kids from hitting up my house and away from my precious candy, couldn’t it also potentially open me up to being labeled a pedophile house or something? And knowing my luck, my passive-aggressive attempt to make it clear that I am anti-Halloween ala Grandpa Get-Off-My-Lawn could actually have the unintended consequence of making me instead look like I’m pro-tricker-or-treater, a.k.a. Creepy Uncle Cho-Mo. (Yes, I watch a lot of prison documentaries…)

ARGH! This plan is a no-go.

Anti-Halloween Plan #2: Leave a Candy Basket Outside My Door

(Plot Twist: It’s Empty!)

Oooh, this plan would be great because I could accomplish two things: (1) I can show off this cute cat-shaped basket my sister gave me (Yes, that’s a basket I drew!) and make everyone who sees it totally jealous and wish they were dead, and (2) it would make me look like I was full of Halloween spirit and giving out candy, but oh no! Looks like I ran out and you children can go beg someone else for free stuff. Uwee hee!

…Ugh, who am I kidding? As if kids are going to see that empty basket go, “Looks like we missed our chance this year. Maybe next time.” Yeah, right. They’re not going to miss shaking down every single house they can find on Halloween because a missed out house means missed out candy. Doesn’t matter that they’ve been warned since birth about not taking candy from strangers, or how many times they’ve heard the horror stories of people giving out treats laced with glass or needles. Those kids are coming for your candy, and nothing—not the threat of danger or preservation of self-dignity—is going to keep them from getting what’s rightfully yours.

We all know it’s pretty much a given that kids are going to see my empty candy basket and go, “I bet there’s more in the house!” But haha! Guess what? Anti-Halloween Plan #2 actually has a nefarious secret Part B…yes, it’s so evil and heinous that the very thought of doing it should be considered a criminal offense, and so horrific that I’m literally hunched over my laptop like a comic book villain as I type this…

So what is this nightmarish Plan B?

CANDY CORN!!!! *Cackle!* *Cackle!*

That’s right! Those kids who don’t heed the warning of the empty cat-shaped basket and make the dire mistake ringing my doorbell in hopes that they can get free candy from me will instead receive candy corn! And not just one little bag because that’s not traumatizing enough–I’m giving them at least 10 bags each!

Bwahahahaha!!!! I told you it was evil!

Seriously, candy corns are the worst things you could ever give someone, period. They’re the f*ck you of candies, and probably invented to give adults a way to tell kids “I hate you” without saying it outright. I mean, first of all, it’s a candy that’s shaped to look like a corn niblet—which is f*cked up right there because who the hell wants candy shaped like a vegetable? Uh, no one, which is why you don’t see things like M&M’s Vegetable Garden Edition or Cadbury Crème Tomatoes.

Secondly, there is no way in hell that whoever invented candy corns was like, “These should be yellow and orange because that’s whimsical!” Hell no. Orange and yellow are the colors you usually see on things like traffic cones, crime scene tape and other items that are used to indicate things that should be avoided. Candy corns are yellow and orange, which makes them worse than radioactive waste, and therefore the best way to tell trick-or-treaters, “Don’t ever f*cking come here again.”

Mwahahaha!!! This is the plan I’m going with! And I’m not even going to put the candy corn in the basket because I want to see the horror and disappointment on their faces when I personally punish them for thinking I work my ass off to give them free candy.

Happy Halloween!