Forget ghosts, zombies, loose wild animals or an army of completely incompetent GOP candidates – what’s real scary this fall is how horrible Halloween has gotten.

Kids don’t celebrate the holiday anymore, not like how we used to get down. Halloween attendance is down roughly 62 percent of what it was ten years ago. Also, 83 percent of the statistics I make up are horribly incorrect.

The exact numbers aren’t out there, but I inquired to my parents on the matter, veterans of letting me look stupid as Super Mario, a pumpkin and WWE’s Mankind, and they both concur the kids don’t come out on the 31^st.

Passing through neighborhoods that once emanated an orange glow, the streets resemble a scene from a nuclear fall-out film, barren of any life. Hell, I’ve seen more people with Christmas lights up already than fake spider webs.

It saddens me that one of the best holidays to lose its true meaning in America and transcend into a mockery of itself is losing steam, but I have a few theories at to why.

The modern day parents just don’t think it’s safe anymore.

The world turns on bad news, and when daily reports of violence, sexual abuse and thievery occur, it’s understandable to not let your children come out unattended in a five-mile radius of me.

Could it also be that the world is really becoming health conscious, not allowing the children to engulf chocolate-peanut butter-cookie-caramel-razorblades until they implode a la Monty Python’s Meaning of Life, pouring Snickers out of their busted-open ribcages?

Fat chance.

The true culprit of the holidays youthful demise is that this generation is whoring out Halloween.

Dressed up in, well, pretty much nothing, Halloween has become a day for the average corner-working girl to blend in with all the other leggy peers.

I can’t go out on Halloween anymore without multiple pairs of underwear when every person with a uterus is a sexy cop, naughty nurse, nasty librarian or hairless kitten, showing off the latter for fat frat guys dressed like a beer keg.

The costumes are ridiculous! I really appreciate it ladies, I do, but my brain can’t handle it. I come prepped on Halloween with a change of underwear.

While growing older has changed my tastes on what I consider a Halloween snack, I feel bad for the kids losing the opportunity I had to be rotund gelatinous blob each year.

There has to be some way to get kids out again, not let the rare yard decorations go to waste without having to initialize the ‘birds and bees’ discussion when they come home soaked from their encounter with a flock of teenagers dressed like my favorites at Déjà Vu.

Like my ideas for this story has become askew, so has the annual Halloween celebration. Our generation galloped away with candy and costumes and in turn transformed it into a hooker holiday, leaving the kids of America in the dark, never getting to experience a real gold mine of an evening.

I hope you’re all happy with the Devil’s Night thievery of Halloween. The day of the dead we once knew will die with us.

Even though the children’s sugar rush is thwarted, sex appeal stinks up the air on Halloween, and you’re going to wonder why 16 and Pregnant is on its 20^th season in ten years.

Trick on and enjoy your treats, Halloween moguls, because the decline is immediate and the hill always seems to get steeper at the bottom.

You can look for me on the 31^st. I’ll be the grouch in a garbage can dressed as Oscar. Bah humbug.