I figure the fact that they’re actually herding the kids instead of doing their own thing merits a piece or two of candy. 
I also figure that any teen who is basically babysitting on Halloween instead of going to parties and/or getting into mischief deserves some candy. Some decent candy, too. In fact, I generally won’t give candy to teens who are out ToTing by themselves, as I figure that they’re too old for it.
I’m not a believer in “store bought” costumes.
It should be something you made yourself, (although the components can come from a store if you wish)
I never went trick or treating, (not big around here) although I do know dad once got caught by the popo in the early seventies on his way to a vice versa party.
While working in the US on a month-long meeting, TPTB decreed that everybody had to go dressed up on a for Halloween (at least they were nice enough to give advice warning so people were able to bring costume stuff). I had an old lab coat I’d been using in the kitchen and a safety hardhat I’d been given in one of our Texas factories.
Whenever I told people I was dressed as “a [Texan factory] lab tech going to take samples” they’d say “no, you would have to wear a hard hat” (it was a very safety-conscious company). I’d knock on the hard hat. They’d pick their jaws from the floor.
Worked helluva well and it took me no effort to prepare.
It’s in my hard drive 
I put a coat hanger around my neck.
Went as an “abortion survivor”.
One of my friends came to a party with a sign around her neck that said “Dressed up like a normal person” - it was pretty funny because Alice could be called anything but normal!
One place where I worked required that you wear your picture ID at all times and above the waist, so we typically clipped it to our collars or shirt pockets. On Halloween, one of the guys took a bottle of white-out and painted over his picture till only the eyes were left - he was a mummy. Our boss cut out a picture of Mikhail Gorbachev and stuck it over his photo. It ended up staying on there for several months till one of the security guards noticed it and made him remove it. For the record, the boss looked nothing like Gorby.
A friend came to one of my parties with a note on his back that said Serial Killer.
Years ago I took my kids to one of those Boo at the Zoo things. Everyone had a costume but me, so I took a plastic shopping back, tore holes for my eyes and mouth and put it over my head, then put my sunglasses on the outside. I started by telling people I was Plastic Bag Man, but later I started saying I was A Bad Example.
One of the laziest costumes I’ve seen was also pretty good.
A guy at a college costume party came in his normal clothes, but he’d covered himself very effectively with those fake cobwebs. He won Creepiest Costume of the night.
In grad school, I once won a prize for “Worst Costume” at a Hallowe’en pub night. I went to the dollar store and bought a few of the cheapest plastic baby dolls I could find, I dismembered them, and then I sewed the limbs and heads onto an old shirt. I was “a pile of dead babies”.
I don’t know if this counts, as it wasn’t Halloween, but I saw a girl at a comics convention get the discount for ‘being in costume.’
She was in street clothes, but she said she was Q from ST:TNG.
Of course, any girl at a comics convention is going to get anything she wants.
When I was a poor student I went to a seventeenth-century themed party with a costume costing 4p. I went in my normal clothes, with a sheet of A4 paper stuck to my chest, reading:
**1664.
A bad year for costumes.
A good year for beer**
(For the non-English, it was a take on the old advertising campaign for Kronenbourg beer)
Bought a cheap pair of sunglasses and a cheap (theme!) black fedora at Sears. Combined with my black suit, white shirt, and black tie that I wore to work anyhow, I was (1) one of the Blues Brothers with the hat, or (2) one of the Men in Black without the hat. Not a costume at all according to the Chronos rule in post 30. :rolleyes:
Hmmm That sounds like an old joke to me. Actually one that have posted on Facebook every year for the past several years. I’m still amazed that people still think it’s true even though I post it every year.
“Last night I had a kid come to my door with a shirt that said ‘Costume’, so I handed him a piece of paper that said ‘Candy’.”
I worked for a company like that once. I dressed in comfortable sweats, brought a tennis racquet and was the most comfortable I’d ever been at work (this was back in the day when ‘Casual Friday’ meant we didn’t have to wear a tie."
My friend hung a potato over his crotch and called himself a dictator.
Did you go as Robin? I bet you would’ve looked cute!
No. She was just a lazy Susan.
Nope, I was Poison Ivy. But I did look cute!
Spray your hair with deodorant and tell people you’re an armpit.
I always wanted to go out for Halloween with a pair of dark glasses, sandals, and a volleyball and tell people I was a nudist, but in Minnesota it was always too damned cold outside.