Smashing Pumpkins
An Open Letter to the Presumably Young Vandals Who Smashed My Kids’ Pumpkins
Dear Miscreants,
A few days ago, we took our kids, ages 4 & 2, to Helene’s Hilltop Orchard to choose pumpkins to carve into their first-ever jack-o-lanterns. The kids went on a hayride that we thoroughly enjoyed while other passengers endured my son’s excited shouts about being driven by a real tractor. After enjoying a snack of apple dumplings and chocolate milk, my sugar-fueled kids ran around the pumpkin patch while Grandma helped them choose the perfect pumpkin. It was just the type of perfect fall day I had envisioned three years ago when we moved our kids here from the over-taxed, smog-ridden, crime-infested cesspool I fondly call Milwaukee.
Those yet-to-be-carved pumpkins were on our porch less than 12 hours when you reckless bandits smashed them to pieces in our driveway.
While my four-year-old helped me clean up the mess the next morning, she asked me repeatedly, “Mommy, why did the mean people do this?” Hmm…good question, indeed. You’re probably the same misfits who threw an egg at my neighbor’s car last week. But what makes a teenager, who not ten years ago was carving their own jack-o-lanterns, want to mar the Halloween experience for other kids?
Young delinquents such as yourselves often like to put the blame on society. Your lives are entirely controlled by adults, and society doesn’t send positive messages to your generation. You’re not allowed to skateboard in public, and you’re treated like a criminal when you walk into a store carrying a backpack. With all of the reasons you find to feel put down by society, I guess I’m supposed to be grateful you just smashed our pumpkins instead of shooting up your school.
Or maybe your concerns are a little less idealistic and a little more selfish. Your mom won’t buy you the Hollister hoodie you want, or the girl you like totally trashed you on MySpace.
It’s also possible you smashed my kids’ pumpkins for no other reason than you wanted to feel brave and look cool in front of your friends. If that’s the case, then it’s pretty rich that in the midst of your cowardly run from our yard, you tripped on the ropes holding up our big inflatable pumpkin with such force that you ripped them from the ground and knocked it over. I’m guessing when you were sprawled out on my lawn face-first, looking pretty much like a moron; your friends had a good laugh at your expense. I would have paid to have seen that, but I arrived on the front porch about twenty seconds too late.
After pondering all of these reasons for your deviant behavior and trying to come up with something to tell my 4-year-old, I realized that I didn’t really have any good answers for her. I just told her that sometimes people make bad choices without thinking of others feelings. I told her that when she has a choice to make, I hoped that she would remember how it feels when people do mean things to you. As she grows, we’ll continue to have talks about personal responsibility so she learns that while being mistreated by others is an unfortunate part of the human condition, perpetuating the misfortune by mistreating others is not a productive solution.
Maybe you don’t have parents who will have these talks with you, or maybe they did and you just didn’t listen because your parents are so, like, uncool. At any rate, I hope you had fun, or whatever it was that you were hoping to experience, with the whole pumpkin smashing experience.
Sincerely,
Yet Another Ranting Adult You Won’t Listen To
Dino Corvino said:
Sorry. I was one of those kids.
October 15th, 2007 at 2:12 pm #
Melissa Sullivan said:
HA! Dino, how did I know you would be the first one to admit that? The only vandalism I ever did in high school was to help my friends plaster our Republican friend’s lawn with Clinton/Gore signs.
October 15th, 2007 at 2:49 pm #
Dino Corvino said:
I might be one of those adults.
We used to take the Xmas trees, after the holiday, and go on the ice behind the damn. Soak the trees in gas. And tie an m-80 to them and light it.
It was awesome.
Someday, I will pass that along.
October 15th, 2007 at 3:20 pm #
Marcus Nelson said:
I was one of the nice kids - I might have put a few Republican signs a yard or two, but I never even thought to have taken someone’s painstakingly carved pumpkin for a roll down the driveway.
It’s always been a mystery why people would toss a poor defenseless orange melon. I mean, it’s not like there had been an unpredictable outcome to a gravity induced impact with said driveway - how is that entertaining? It’s just a hazardous, slimy mess for some distressed homeowner to contend with in the morning. Not nice at all.
Of course - if the pumpkin had been placed in a canon of sorts, that might have been a different sort of entertainment entirely. ;-)
October 15th, 2007 at 8:30 pm #
robertmentzer said:
This is terrible, seriously, I remember being really hurt as a kid when some people smashed pumpkins my dad and I had made.
I remembered that feeling into my teen years, and devised the following rule: no pumpkin-smashing before Halloween. I still think is a fairly sophisticated moral code for a miscreant teen. Before Halloween, you are just being a jerk hurting little kids’ feelings. After Halloween, though, smashing pumpkins left on porches is practically a public service…
October 16th, 2007 at 11:29 am #
Dino Corvino said:
Sorry Robert.
I think we mostly waited until after, us Weston hooligans tended to have morals.
The Wausau East kids were savages though.
October 16th, 2007 at 11:52 am #
Melissa Sullivan said:
I love the idea of a moral code for miscreants! After Halloween, I’ll leave my pumpkins on the curb with “Free for Smashing” sign.
Our new pumpkins have been unharmed on the porch for 5 days now.
October 18th, 2007 at 2:27 pm #
hello said:
Ranting Adult - I would invest in more pumpkins, place them on your steps again, stay up, and wait……Teach the kids a lesson ;)
October 19th, 2007 at 8:26 am #
dixiela said:
You simply put a bunch of Pumpkins out and wait up, as I did one year. When the pumpkin kids come around to smash them, I simply sprayed them all with a high powered squirt gun, ofcorse with food dye coloring in it. Not only did they run away in a hurry, but try to explain how there clothes, bodies, etc. got covered in dye. Not to mention the fact, of how to get it off. That really gets there parents attention of what they were doing, and where.
October 19th, 2007 at 9:45 am #
bender said:
Damn!
I just clicked on this site for the first time this morning and thought “wow, someone in Wausau likes The Smashing Pumpkins (band) other than me”.
AARRRGGGHHHH!
The wife and I bring the fancy carved pumpkins in at night and leave a really mushy one or two out for the punks. The dog usually leaves a present below our pumpkin wall; sometimes it’s squished come morning.
October 19th, 2007 at 8:43 pm #
Melissa Sullivan said:
You people are sadists. I love it.
October 20th, 2007 at 7:52 am #
msweston said:
You are right Dino.. those of us that grew up in Weston/Schofield rarely smashed pumpkins untill AFTER Halloween… then it was a free for all. I recall waxing windows and tolietpapering trees as highlights of my teenage halloween experiences. Oh to be that young again… I know a few people today that I would love to toliet paper their trees and wax their windows!!! I am not sure how I would explain my arrest by Everest Metro to my kids… Sorry Mom was having a bad day lol… YES YES I know I am in my 40’s… but I still want to misbehave on Oct 31st lol…
October 21st, 2007 at 3:19 am #
boboda said:
I’ve often thought a good item to sell for halloween would be pre-smashed pumkins. Deprive vandals of some satisfaction.
October 21st, 2007 at 8:18 pm #