The Halloween Experiment

But first, here is Joe wishing you a Happy Halloween!  He's a little embarrassed as he's having to wear last year's costume, but he still enjoyed seeing all the kids come to the door.

And in fact, handing candy out to the kids and talking to them has always been one of my favorite things to do.  Talking to mom on the phone tonight we were thinking back to years ago and sharing favorite memories.  I remember huge groups of kids and parents walking the neighborhood when my kids were young and it was so much fun.  Mom told me a story of a lady that she said probably started getting ready for Halloween two weeks ahead of time.  They'd go to this lady's house to trick-or-treat and go inside to her dining room table and choose from homemade cookies, popcorn balls, etc.  Sadly, that sort of thing is but a memory now.

Now, we have a very warped and nerdy sense of adventure.  Earlier today we decided it would be fun to see what would actually happen if we set a bowl of candy on the porch with a note that read "Honor System, Take 2 Please".  If you look just to the right of Joe in the photo above you'll see the video camera we set up for the experiment (and we did fix the curtains so that the camera wasn't noticeable). 

Up until about 8:00 I handed out candy and enjoyed every moment of it.  Then we were ready for the experiment.  I set the bowl on the porch, we turned off the inside lights, shut the door, activated the camera and waited.  In the next hour only two groups of kids came to the porch, possibly because they saw the front door closed.

The first two kids came up to the porch and the older of the two read the sign out loud.  Then she counted her candy "one, two" and helped the younger one with her with their candy "one, two" and off they went.  The next two more kids came up and read the sign, then they were quiet for a minute.  The next thing you hear from them is "We can be good, can't we?" and they each took two pieces of candy.  As they left the porch they called out "Thank you bowl!"

When we watched the video after bringing it all inside we burst out laughing at the "we can be good, can't we?" statement.  I guess there was an instant of being torn, but good won out.

And it did our hearts good to see how the kids reacted.  The best part was that there was still candy in the bowl when we brought it in.  If children are our future, we're in good hands based on the kids that visited our porch tonight.