Halloween Candy

Halloween is associated with candy that is given out to trick-or-treaters. Not desiring to have to put up with a trick, I like to provide candy to the few that come to our house. Years past, say 20 to 25, the neighborhood used to have many more children. The children have moved on, but many of the parents have stayed in their homes, altering the demographic makeup of the neighborhood. What type and how much Halloween candy does one dispense?

Bag of Candy, with most Snickers out

A couple weeks ago my spouse and I were at Farm and Fleet to purchase a belt for the rototiller, and a few other items. My spouse asked if I wanted to give out candy for Halloween, and I said yes. So we picked up a bag of what was reported to be 55 pieces of candy from Mars/Wrigley. The bag contained four types of candy: Twix, M&M's, Peanut M&M's, and Snickers. For some reason, I was thinking they would have a near equal distribution in the bag. That was not to be. They may have simply labeled the bag: Snickers with a few M&M's, Peanut M&M's, and Twix thrown in. 

First candy distribution

During Covid I started to place candy outside, with a nice sign asking themselves to help their self to two pieces. (One year I used a few, and had a teenage girl dump the whole bowl in her pillow case, so now I limit to two). During peak Covid, 2020, I went so far as to layout the bars in groups so they only had to touch what they picked up. The wife thinks I am taking the easy way out, by not answering the door. I know her passive-aggressive tactic, which is to have me keep getting up so I get sick of giving out candy. She is one of those who thinks we should no longer give out candy on Halloween. I am not one of those persons. Bill Gates said he likes to hire lazy people because they find the most efficient method of doing work--and hence can do more work. I have found, but that one incident, an efficient way of candy distribution.

Candy by type. Minus one Peanut M&M

Back to the candy bag allocation. When I was starting to set up a container with the candy, it seemed I kept pulling out Snicker bars. I decided to count what I had: 28 Snickers, 6 Twix, 15 M&M, and 8 Peanut M&M. I had eaten one Peanut M&M for which I had to delve to the depths of the bag. My take is that people must not like Snickers, because they put so many in. The anti-Halloween wife likes Snickers and provided the theory that they are likely giving out what people like and that is Snickers. My favorites would be what the bag had the least of. A Snicker bar is at the bottom of good candy bars in my opinion. 

My Sign

We have not gotten many trick-or-treaters the past several years, and with the cold weather for this Halloween, I doubted the number would increase. This year for the first round, I placed all 28 Snickers and two M&M's in the container. I don't put all the candy in the container at once, in case one person, like that girl, decides to go rogue and dump all candy in their container. I put about half in the container. Later I put out more candy. What I found was that 20 Snickers and both M&M were taken from the container. This means (small sample size aside) that 100% of the available M&M's were grabbed, but less than 75% of the Snicker bars, proving that children do not like Snickers as much. After putting out more candy we had no Trick-or Treaters. I turned off the light at 7:35 pm. I put out the Snickers, because if we have left over candy, I prefer it not to be Snickers. At two pieces each I can handle 28 visitors. The reason I ate one was to get the number from the advertised 55 to 54. I guess I should have counted before eating, but that Peanut M&M was just screaming eat me, eat me. 

The good news, we did not get tricked, and so even if they do not like Snickers, they were at least kind enough to know they got something. Maybe, just maybe there is some redheaded kid out there that likes Snicker bars. Kids are kids and will likely be happy with any type of Halloween Candy, even if a Snickers bar.