House meter question

I noticed if you hammer a pipe into the earth ,,say in your yard,,and connect a wire to that,,and use that as the negative wire,,then connect a wire to the positive of an ac outlet in your home,,the meter shows it as around 110 volts but at a much lower amperage,,but it will still light up a 100 watt light bulb but dimly. So I was wondering would using the ground wire connected to a pipe in the yard,,does this bypass the house meter and its hall effect working principal? Meaning what small amount is here if used would not show up on the meter. Since its not going back threw the house ac positive and negative outlet? Does the hall effect in a meter work by both positive and negative connected threw and backfeeding into the meter? Or does the hall effect work only threw the hot wire only?