Our Harris / Walz yard sign was vandalized two weeks ago - someone spray-painted a black circle with a line through it on one side. This was vaguely sinister, though ineffective, since we turned the sign around and put the graffiti against our juniper bush. The vandal struck back, removing the sign entirely. Unbeknownst to one another, my husband and I each ordered new signs and now we have three, two in the yard and one on the corner. Not sure why people feel entitled to remove private property from private property, but in our (otherwise safe) neighborhood they even steal Baby Jesus from the manger across the street, so I'm not surprised.
Not to rush ahead like CostCo and jump seasons . . . on Tuesday I realized that - for the first time since the kids were born - we had no pumpkins. Safeway was all out of pumpkins, so I bought two bags full of colorful gourds the size of pickleball balls, and heaped them in what I hoped was charming disarray on our porch. The next day I noticed that most of the gourds were gone, and I feared our sign vandal, or their cousin. What is this world coming to, I wondered.
The gourd removal incident was cleared up yesterday when I was folding clothes and gazing out of the glass doors. A skinny squirrel ran by, holding one of my green gourds in his mouth and sprinting for all he was worth to the backyard. I jumped up to apprehend him (through the glass? I wasn't thinking) but he was already gone, with $12 worth of Halloween decor in his back pocket. Better a squirrel than a vandal, I thought, but then again, the vandal is like the squirrel, an irritating small rodent rather than a signifier of a larger threat.
So we're undecorated but ready for Halloween tonight. No costume could be scarier than the situation our country is currently in, but I hope at least for some distraction and a little candy - a treat to go along with our tricks.
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