Night Eyes

The Blank Park Zoo is actually really close to Drake. It's maybe twenty minutes away. I'd never been until a few days ago.

I was volunteering with their Night Eyes program through my service fraternity APO. Basically, Night Eyes is an event for kids and their parents where they can all get dressed up in Halloween costumes and come to the zoo for trick-or-treating or other fun activities.

I was assigned to a treat station so I got to pass out candies to all the little kids. And they were adorable! I think I saw more Spider Mans than anything else. The tiny babies were dressed up as lions and peapods and chickens and other equally as adorable things. The bigger kids were ninjas and princesses, and then there were the tweens who were pretending they didn't care and came in regular school clothes.

We were passing out chick-o-sticks at my station. Now, I don't know about you, but I have never heard of such a candy. But, apparently, it's kind of a big deal. I think it's an older candy because all of the adults got really excited about it. A few of the kids were excited too but generally shared my lack of knowledge regarding the treat. I was told they taste like the inside of a Butterfinger. As I don't like Butterfingers, I wasn't inclined to try it.

But all the while I was handing out candy, I couldn't help but think how counter-productive the whole concept of Halloween is. All year we teach children not to take candy from strangers.

"never take candy from strangers," we'll tell them. "It's bad. You don't know them."

Apparently it's only bad 364 days of the year. On Halloween it's fair game to take candy from strangers. Obviously parents go through the candy to "check it" in case anything looks dodgy, but I think they're really confiscating the good stuff.

"Making sure it isn't poisoned," they'll tell us.

SUUUUUUREEEE...