Roger Collier

S tealing is bad, but stealing badly is inexcusable. Of course, most adults don't steal things anyway, unless you count pens and staplers from work, towels from hotels, or songs and movies from the Internet. I steal only one thing -- candy -- and I do it well.

I don't steal candy from stores, mind you. (I'm not a criminal.) I steal it from children -- specifically, from my two children (though any kid that enters my home with Twizzlers is tempting fate). I don't mean to boast, but I have become something of an expert in discretely nabbing sweets from unsuspecting tots.

It would be selfish of me to keep such expertise to myself, so, today, I share it with the world. If you are a parent who, like me, is sweet in the tooth, you might want to grab a pen and take notes.

People use the phrase "like stealing candy from a baby" to describe something that is easy to accomplish, but it doesn't make sense. Babies don't eat candy, because they don't have teeth. The only things babies put in their mouths are bottles, breasts, soothers, coins, dirt, action figures, soap, their toes, their fingers, other people's fingers, Lego blocks, batteries and pens.

A better simile would be "like stealing candy from a child," though that is still a poor way of describing a simple endeavour. Children love candy. Stealing it from them without them noticing (and freaking out) is anything but easy. I would know. I've been stealing candy from my kids every day for the past two weeks.

I would surely have been caught by now if I grabbed their goodies willy-nilly. But my kids never catch me, for one simple reason: I follow a strict protocol.

You might be wondering why my children, who are four and seven, have so much candy. Most of the time, actually, my wife and I limit their junk food. It is only during the post-Halloween candypalooza that they have their own stockpiles, which are kept in bags on top of the refrigerator.

Each evening, they get to choose two treats after dinner -- until their bags are empty, which would take months if I weren't stealing 10 to 15 items from them every day.

Immediately following Halloween, stealing from kids' loot bags requires little strategy. The bags are so full that you can skim 10 per cent right off the top and your children won't even notice. During this short but blissful period, you only have to show caution when eating those little bags of chips.

The bags are noisy to open, and your children, if within earshot, will come running when they hear that crinkly sound. It is best to grab a few bags and head for the basement. When my children are older, they will probably wonder why their father "checked the furnace" so often in early November (and why, each time he came back upstairs, his breath smelled like Zesty Cheese Doritos).

Within a few days, your children's candy supply will have dwindled by a noticeable amount. At this stage, there is one cardinal rule: Never let your kids hold their loot bags. If they do, they will wonder how the bags got so light so quickly.

To be safe, I keep my children at least 12 feet away from their loot bags at all times. I ask them what they want and, from across the room, toss them their treats. This not only keeps them in the dark about how rapidly their candy reserve is shrinking, but also improves their hand-eye coordination.

After two weeks of pilfering your kids' Halloween haul, you will have reduced it to practically nothing. Even if you are lucky enough to have dumb children, they may become suspicious at this point. This is when I break out the psychological component of my game plan.

I tell my children that, yes, much of their candy seems to have disappeared. Santa must have made a preliminary visit to assess their behaviour, I say, and he took their candy to punish them for being so naughty this year.

This always makes my children cry, which might bother a lesser parent, but not me. Pain builds character. I want my children to be strong, to take life's disappointments in stride. That's the reason I steal their candy. If eating 45 mini-chocolate bars is what it takes to prepare my children for this cruel world, I'm willing to make that sacrifice.