On 2005-11-01, animzmirot wrote:
With that said, I think anyone that buys halloween candy 3 weeks ahead of
time and expects it to still be there is either from another planet or
living in denial. If you have children, they're going to want to eat candy.
I usually buy a couple of bags before the holiday to keep the kids happy.
We routinely buy Halloween candy at the beginning of October, and the
bags remain unopened until Oct 31---and these are candies that
everyone in the house likes. My son is allowed one candy a day year
round (with no limits on Halloween, Christmas, Easter, his birthday,
and no limit on Hannukah gelt during Hannukah). Most days he doesn't
bother to ask for his candy---I think we still have some of the less
popular candies from last Halloween.
Of course, we do hide the Halloween candy during October---not because
anyone is looking for it, but because if it is out of sight no one
will be unreasonably tempted. One common hiding place is the freezer.
We often have food in the house that is intended for a single
consumer, but generally such items have to be announced or labeled.
Most of the common ones need no labeling (my wife is the only one who
drinks coffee, I'm the only one who drinks tea, my son gets whole
milk, I get skim milk, only my wife eats salsa with cilantro in it, ...).
If there is a bar of chocolate being saved for a cake or something,
everyone needs to be told.
Utility items (bread, cheese, tortillas, rice, leftovers, ...) can be
eaten by anyone at any time. It is considered polite to let someone
know when we run out of something (or nearly do) so that it can be
replenished.
------------------------------------------------------------
Kevin Karplus
http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus
Professor of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics
(Senior member, IEEE) (Board of Directors, ISCB)
life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels)
Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed)
Affiliations for identification only.