Two failed childhood experiments
1. Influenced by: Princess and the Pea. I placed two AA batteries under my parents' mattress to see if they would be able to pick up on the small objects buried beneath them while they slept. They did not.
2. Influenced by: an old Snickers commercial that showed a hand closing over a bunch of peanuts and opening to reveal a Snickers bar in their place. I woke up my mom in the middle of the night and handed her a fistful of pennies. My mom lay there sleepily while I instructed her to close her hand over the pennies and when she opened it again, it would be a penny bar. She dutifully closed and opened her hand. No penny bar.
Both of these made me laugh out loud.
That reminds me of when we put that bean (or was it flour?) on the logs in your fireplace to see if Santa moved them when he came down. We also launched a plan for you to sit upstairs all night and peer down into the living room to see if you saw Santa so you could report back in the morning on what he looked like. I believe the bean stayed in place and all you saw was your parents. Another failed childhood experiment.
We were so embarrassingly old when we did the Santa things, but I definitely remember the bean on the log. I blame you and your insistence that elves existed. ;-)