How Many Tootsie Rolls Is a Snickers Worth? Kids Know.
Like any grown-up bartering exchange, the Halloween candy trade is a delicate and complex affair that is influenced by the power dynamics of the room.
After knocking on every door on the block on Halloween night, many children come home and promptly set up what looks unmistakably like a bargaining table. In the hours before bedtime, an elementary kind of commerce ensues: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and full-size Butterfingers will either be hoarded in the face of generous offers or traded at a steep exchange rate for Skittles or Starbursts. Off-brand Smarties will likely be offloaded into the plastic pumpkin-shaped buckets of unsuspecting toddlers, replacing the Sour Patch Kids, which their devious older siblings have convinced them are inferior.
But like every business transaction, the success of a candy exchange can
