Halloween is quickly approaching and community watchdogs want people to be on the lookout for ghosts, ghouls ... and people with money who skimp on handing out large packs of candy.
On Thursday, @BestofNextdoor, a Twitter account devoted to calling out funny posts found on local Nextdoor app message boards,tweeted a post from an anonymous account that goes into painstaking detail about the type of candy that's been deemed as acceptable to be handed out in "affluent" neighborhoodsand, perhaps more importantly, the types of treats that should be banished forever.
The author tries to pass off their three-paragraph rant as a public service announcement on behalf of deprived children in their "affluent" town of Rancho Cucamonga.
And by deprived, they mean all the kids who have apparently suffered at the hands of the wealthy doling out sorry excuses for candy, such as Dum Dums and Smarties.
"Over the last three Halloweens, I’ve noticed candy stock has become more and more diluted with cheap candy. I don’t know if this trend is the result of the higher bills or even the new constructions, but cheap candy has somehow infiltrated our community for Halloween and it has to stop," the post reads.
It continues,"Standard full or KING size candy is the bar (pun intended) we set for our community on Halloween. If you purchased the fun size, you don’t need to return them. Just keep in mind that 4-6 of those fun size bars equate to a standard size bar when you doll out that candy to trick or treaters.
"And please, for God’s sake, leave those Peep candies alone. No one, and I mean NO ONE, wants those terrible marshmallow tragedies."
That's a pretty solid burn to the peeps who make Peeps. The post also bashes "the elderly" for "peddling" pennies and recommends they stop, or else step it up with quarters.
Best of Nextdoor's tweet has quickly gone viral, with almost 14,000 likes and over 3,000 comments.Most people were amused, but some seemed to take offense with the post's overall message.
That is, of course, unless it's the incredibly divisive candy corn.
TODAY Food reached out to the Nextdoor trolling account which tweeted the post, but the people behind the account would not confirm how this particular message was obtained.
On Facebook, however, someone whose account says she's from Rancho Cucamonga posted the same PSA on Wednesday — a day before Best of Nextdoor put up its tweet.
After calling out the penny-peddling elderly, the account holder named Tanya Wilkerson continues with more over-the-tops demands, like suggesting dark chocolate be kept "out of circulation" and warned citizens they'd be watched while trick-or-treaters visited their homes.
"Let it be known that this year, there are several of us parents patrolling and monitoring the candy distribution of houses in our neighborhood," the lengthier diatribe reads. "We will be carrying around small cans of spray paint and marking the sidewalks in front of your house with a red dot in hopes of preventing others from experiencing the same ill fate and time wasted."
At the very end of Wilkerson's post, a cheeky disclaimer appears: "This is a joke, stolen from another city's page, changed to Rancho Cucamonga with some added flare ... Hope you laughed. And if you started to get pissed, well good! It got me too! LOL!!"
Wilkerson was not immediately available for comment, but even if the whole thing is a joke, cheapskates everywhere have been warned.