Trick or Treat (NEW)

Run, just run!

As this is the time of year when the minds of youngsters traditionally turn to all things Spooky, I thought I might discuss a scary thing or two. I imagine, by now, most of you have seen those (hard to watch) DateLine "internet pedafile" - Catch a Predator specials. I did an unofficial poll and I only found one person who hadn't heard of it, everybody else is watching and they seem about equally divided between those who would like to see the visitors dropped with a high-powered rifle the instant they set foot on the property and those who wind up feeling a little bit sorry for these closet scumbags. Personally I don't feel sorry for them. People are always talking about, "they were probably molested when they were kids." I never bought into that crap. The opposite makes more sense to me. Hell, I was molested by a female babysitter when I was a kid and it's right up there with my fondest memories. Anyway, if you're unfamiliar with the program I'm torn as to whether to recommend it – on the one hand it's important information especially for parents; on the other the show is enough to give you nightmares and turn you into a neurotic mess who won't let their children leave the house until they're in their thirties.

I have to despair for how dramatically the world has changed since I was riding my trusty Stingray all over the Sugarhouse area of Salt Lake City. I was 8 years old, it was the Summer of Love and I was in love with the world. Everything was sunshine and Camaros - the Beatles were in their prime and providing the soundtrack to my freewheelin' lifestyle as the king of all I surveyed. My mother knew I would eventually come home when I got hungry enough, but I had no fear of the big, wide, wonderful world and neither did my parents. I have daughters 9 and 7 and I would no more feel comfortable about them walking around the block by themselves than I would letting them throw jagged shards of broken glass at each others heads - and I live across the street from the temple. What the hell happened to the world in 40 years?

Personally I blame Dateline. The media has turned the world into a frightening forbidding place where nasty horrible things happen and not just to the other guy. Scary sells – scary sold us a war that nobody wants anymore. Buyers remorse. But in the case of the "Perv Patrol" I'm all for it. Parents need to be aware of this strange threat - that these skeezy monsters have a doggy door into their home. Actually the way they go about bagging the scum is pretty much your basic "bait and switch," and it plays to our most extreme car wreck-gazing instincts. The cops whom man the computer "sting-staff" (some are older men) pose online as 13 year old girls yakking away in chatrooms (likely to be frequented by youngsters.) These fictitious young girls are curious about sex and profess to a willingness to experiment. And oh my dear Lord the cockroaches come spilling out of the woodwork in numbers odd and even. All of them more than willing to help fill any gaps the 13 year olds' might have in their sexual know-how. Unfortunately for them, they have a silly little tendency to go into graphic detail as to how they might go about such things - words and proposed deeds that will haunt them for the rest of their ruined lives.

During these chats the sting-staff lure men and their unlawful sexual inclinations to a huge suburban home where they expect to find a 13 year old girl (whose parents are away) waiting to explore her blossoming interests with an experienced mentor. The place is rigged with hidden cameras, microphones and the works and the wait isn't long as men ranging from 25 to 60, from every walk of life, start rolling up. Doctors, Computer Programmers, Claims Adjusters, Loan Officers, Produce Managers, family men, a lot of them - certainly not the hand-wringing fiends you might envision. Drooling, gibberish chortling, trenchcoat clad Aqualungs? Not even close. Maybe the dumbest one was a truckdriver who just pulled his 18 wheeler right in the driveway. 10-4 Good buddy – that adds up to 14 which equals 6 Smokeys and 5 to 10 no parole. "Do the math "Hoosier Daddy" cummo?"

Certainly the most striking thing about all this (and there's a lot of striking things) is the nonchalance with which these men enter the house. Few bother to knock, most holler out some sort of "honey I'm home" kind of ice-breaking humor on their way to the fridge. Some come bearing alcohol and condoms at the behest of our stingsters, the funniest was a guy who scarcely made it in the house before he started taking off his clothes, (all of his clothes). It's really hard to understand these guys' utter lack of caution, I'd feel funny just waltzing into a stranger's house to tell them their garage was on fire. These are men have clearly turned over the wheel to the smaller of their two heads. The whole show really does a number on your noggin – in one sense you should be appalled at the heinous crimes these men have come to commit, but how are you supposed to not laugh at a naked Pakistani going through the fridge? Whoever chatted with this guy must be awfully good at their job, "yea, just come on in and make yourself at home. There really should be a name for this crime besides "indecent exposure" I don't know, maybe "Naked and Entering?"

Once these men have settled in to wait for the youngster to toss a load in the dryer, out comes the Dateline Doomsday Dude, but he just kind of wanders in without a hint of menace, like maybe an uncle who dropped by unexpectedly, and by not bringing down the smackhammer right away, we get to play these poor suckers like fish – large mouth basstards. They're hooked but good, so what's the hurry to reel ‘em in. Our motives here are twofold. First, I suppose, is wanting to see these devious little sex monkeys squirm. Secondly, it's interesting to try and get a handle on what causes an outwardly normal, breadwinning family man to arise at 3 in the morning so he can drive 7 hours to have sex and then play Barbies. I don't know how they look themselves in the rear-view mirror? Fear not, however, because Dateline Doomsday Dude (3D) likes to let them stew in their own foul juices. There's no visible camera crew yet, so there's no real reason for suckerfish to imagine that he's all but filleted and pan-seered - especially with 3D coming on all low key. "How's it goin?" or "what's up?" He isn't interested in being the heavy, he's more into throwing them a length of rope – "so what are you doing here?" The standard answer is, "Oh she's uh, just a friend. Sometimes I help her with her homework, look-in on her when her folks are away." Yup, just a friend of the family. I kinda keep an eye, you know - help her with her housework. Work work work" (3D forces a laugh). 3D can be a harsh and sadistic moderater. At this point things are getting palpably awkward - suckerfish is thinking about leaving, but then again, "who is this pretty boy, anyway? Hell I drove seven hours."

Then 3D turns up the heat. He pulls out the transcripts from the chat. "Chat" – it seems like such a harmless, silly little word "chat." Chit chat imagine that. I'm sure it doesn't sound too impressive in Maximum Security, "I'm up for Manslaughter, Armed Robbery and Assault and Battery how ‘bout you man? "Uh . . . chatting." "You a Chatter huh? Let me hear you chat something pretty? How ‘bout you chat me this "My name is Cathy and I'm yo chatty bitch. Easy girl – you wouldn't like me when I'm angry, Y'see that weren't a yes or no question, Cath. In fact it'd be in your best interest to go ahead and fall madly in love with me, right this minute – ain't I adorable?" It does your heart good to see the American Penal system running like a well-oiled machine. One of those rare instances when the punishment fits the crime to a tee.

Anyway, after 3D regales the suckerfish with a few choice passages from the chat transcripts, the camera crew begins to emerge from an adjoining room and you sense that the largemouth basstards are beginning to feel the discomfort as the barb sets a little more deeply into their cheek. Once 3D introduces himself, brings up the concept of Dateline and it becomes clear to suckerfish that their naughty little felonious activities are going to be broadcast before the entire world, there's a noise you start to hear. A faint sound to the newcomer, but quite deafening to regular viewers, the unmistakable sound of one's life crashing down all around them. A lot of the fellas decide they've had quite enough of this nonsense by this point, and then we're treated to one last moment of poignant pathos as the suckerfish actually believes that he's simply going to be allowed to swim away. This is where it really turns pathetic. As you might guess, awaiting their departure from the funhouse is a half dozen good-sized police officers whom, more often than not, add injury to insult by tackling the dangerous accountant like they were expecting O.J. I know they deserve it, the scummy pricks, but it seems a bit unnecessary to cram them in the back seat with a good chunk of turf stuck in their teeth.

For all the human drama and the agony of defeat this Dateline deal probably isn't putting any kind of dent in the prevalence of this dangerous world of online predators. These are the new Highwaymen of the information age and as much as awareness will certainly help - don't be fooled into believing that this show has done anything more than scrape enough frost off the tip of the iceberg to allow us a frightening glimpse at the beady, bloodshot eye of a monster spawned and spreading in the rest stops and underpasses of the information superhighway. Have fun taking your kids trick or treating.