The progression of candy rationing

When trick-or-treating, there’s a certain ‘prime time’ to get out there knocking on doors if you want to maximize your candy while minimizing your effort. This year, after finally being on the other side of the door, I really learned something about when the best time to trick-or-treat is. Turns out, I may have been totally blowing it my entire life.

You see, the first trick-or-treaters come very early, long before sunset. Our first little candy hunter arrived at around 5:30PM and looked something like this:

He is our next-door neighbor, a child of around two years old who was dressed as a lion. He was too scared to ring the doorbell, and when I offered him candy, he looked not at me but at the two-foot plastic skeleton we’d hung from the porch light. The Cowardly Lion was so transfixed by the skeleton that he didn’t even glance at me when I put a piece of candy in his hand. When his mom told him to say “thank you,” he started to cry.

That little guy got one piece of candy.

 Around half an hour later, the doorbell really started chiming. The kids were coming in droves. They were mostly still very young and adorable.

 

Worried about our supply and assuming the kids would continue to come at this rate, I gave each kid two pieces of candy. 

But by 7PM, the doorbell had really died down. It was dark out now, and the kids were getting older. Many carried large satchels and pillow cases for their candy.

Suddenly, my fear turned around – we weren’t going to run out of candy; we were going to be stuck with bags and bags of it! So I started giving out handfuls to whoever showed up. 

By 8, the doorbell had pretty much gone silent. We started thinking up ways to get rid of the extra candy – try to pawn it off on coworkers, family, friends, strangers, stray dogs … anything to get it out of the house.

So when the doorbell rang at 8:30, finding me desperate to get rid of the candy …

 

 

 

 

 

And there you have it – the progression of candy-rationing. Get there right when the homeowners realize they're going to be eating Kit Kats til Christmas, and you just might win the candy Powerball.

While the costumeless hooligan may have won the most candy, he did not, however, win my heart.

My heart still belongs to this little fellow:

Too scared of a plastic skeleton to take his candy. Awwwwwww.