Can children go trick-or-treating in Tulsa on Halloween? Only if they wear a mask.

Halloween is always weird but the Chinese coronavirus is going to make it especially strange and awkward this year.

Tulsa has a mask ordinance that requires everyone – age and 10 or older – to wear a mask in public, to keep a social distance (probably six feet) and to wash their hands constantly.

Yeah. Kids are going obey those coronavirus protocols while going door to door to collect treats.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, here are “high risk activities” on Halloween that should be shunned:

• Going door to door for traditional trick-or-treating
• Having “trunk-or-treat” where treats are handed of cars in a parking lot
• Crowded costume parties held indoors
• Going to an indoor haunted house that is crowded and people might be “screaming”
• Taking a hayride with someone who is not a member of your household
• Using drugs or alcohol
• Going to a rural fall festival if you suspect cases of the virus are in your hometown.

There is a “moderate risk” for these activities:

• One-way trick-or-treating with individual treats in goodie bags set at the end of a driveway or yard
• A small group open-air costume parade
• A costume party outdoors with everyone wearing protective masks. A costume mask doesn’t work.
• An open-air walk through a haunted forest with added spacing if people start screaming
• Visiting a pumpkin patch with hand sanitizers
• An outdoor movie night with family and friends

These are the “low-risk” activities from the CDC:

• Carve pumpkins with your family
• Decorate your house
• An outdoor Halloween scavenger hunt or in your house
• A movie night at home

In other words, the scariest thing for the children on Halloween is the coronavirus.

We are teaching our kids to be fearful of something that is deadly mostly to old folks.

In Washington, D.C., on Halloween, you are not supposed to trick-or-treat, bob for apples or sing and dance.

In California, gatherings of any size are forbidden under state health orders. Officials suggest a “virtual costume party” – whatever that is. Disneyland’s Oogie Boogie Bash in Anaheim has been canceled.

According to USA, Halloween events have been canceled in at least 37 states.

The Chicago Tribune had a story about how to create a “candy chute” for Halloween. The writer was going to get a 10-feet piece of orange PVC pipe with a three-inch diameter but instead he found an eight-foot section of leftover 2-inch pipe in his garage. He cleaned it and using some orange duct tape, he attached a 45-degree angle elbow and then put on a plastic pumpkin at the bottom.

So he is going to stand on his porch and drop candy down the chute to the little kids in costumes on Halloween. This is a little strange but at least it works better than leaving a bowl of candy on the porch. When you do that, the first few kids take all the candy.

Here’s another treat for Halloween. The Daylight Savings time switch is Sunday, November 1. That means that kids can stay up an hour later on Halloween because we gain an hour (spring forward, fall back). At midnight, it will sorta be 11 p.m.

If you don’t like the kids in your neighborhood, you might check out the various lists of the worst Halloween candies.

According to the Houston Press, here are the worst:

10. Green Tea Kit Kats (designed to sell in Japan)

9. Runts (I have never heard of these but they apparently taste like rotten, overripe fruit.)

8. Reese’s White Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups (White chocolate is not really chocolate and my wife won’t eat it.)

7. Now and Laters (Dentists looking for more patients should love these.)

6. Original Boston Baked Beans (This are shriveled peanuts covered in sugar glop.)

5. Hershey’s Cherry Cordial Crème Kisses (These take like a milk chocolate Hershey’s Kiss – which are delicious – filled with chery cough syrup.)

4. Wax Bottles (This is just wax filled with processed juice).

3. Candy Dots (People used to sell these for fundraisers. Ugh.)

2. Jujubes (These are supposed to be fruit based but they don’t taste like the fruit they represent.)

1. Circus Peanuts (These actually are not too bad unless they are old and get hard as rock.)

People like to add candy corn to the list of worst candy but they also are not bad until they get hard.

People generally agree that Reese’s peanut butter cups are the best but don’t forget about Kit Kats, Twix, Starburst and Hershey’s chocolate.

Our strategy is to buy as little candy as possible and only buy stuff that we would be willing to violate our diets for should we have leftovers.