Thieves steal pumpkins!

[Pumpkin King]

I remember being in high school and there was a student who went around stealing all of our pumpkins. When Halloween came around, we left to go home and I remember a girl pointing up at the school roof. All of our pumpkins were stacked in a pile on the school roof. Of course, someone let the janitor know and we ended up getting our pumpkins back before going home.

[Kyu]

There were some bullies in my old neighborhood who used to smash peoples pumpkins on the sides of their houses. There was one little girl who had carved her first pumpkin, and was really proud of it, and they smashed it! She saw them do it and cried and they just laughed. I got really mad at them and threw a Halloween squash at them and it hit one in the head and the other it the stomach. That'll teach them!

That's actually normal arond here, except people have actually attacked back.
Be careful dude.

[Pumpkin_Man]

That happens a lot where I live, too. I've never had a problem with it, but others have come home from work to see their pumpkins smashed. I usualy leave my pumpkin out on the front porch until I'm ready to carve it. One time I came home from work and saw a squirl scurry away. I noticed there were a few bites taken from my pumpkin, so I put it in the back room in my house where it was cool enough to keep it from getting rotten.

Mike

[Haunt Master]

Ok, from last night my next door neighbor knocked my door and I opened to let her in. I was adviced to keep eye on that drunk man just about away from house. I went outside and studied on him, he kept looking at my house where I have all halloween decorations and props even pumpkins in the front yard. He walked around like 20 minutes or so, I decided to call the cops. When the cops arrived to questions that drunk man, then he left my area. I talked to cops, and they told me that drunk guy was definitely drunk, and already urniated in the woods, then walked around the street to make him sober before he got chance to go home because he didn't want his wife to find out that he's very drunk. Hee hee.... But, the problem - I was afraid that something will happen to my decors, props, and everything! I didn't want them to be stolen or damaged, you know? Jeez!

[Kyu]

Drunk people really make me angry.
They're no good.

[Pumpkin_Man]

I think people often use drunkeness or being high on drugs as an excuse for obnoxious behaviour, and I don't buy it. I think that drunk or not, you should be held accountable for the damages that you do. If some drunken idiot damaged my property, I would have him up on charges.

Mike

[theicewitch]

The kindergartners at a local school here built a huge scare crow for the scarecrow festival, it was great....then some jerks burnt it.

[Haunt Master]

What have the devils done something like that???


About 4 or 5 years ago, a friend of mine cleaned up his haunt yard display and put everything back in the shed and locked it. Some thieves, somehow, broke the lock and stole everything then fled. He lost the worth of $240 props and stuffs like that!!! WTF???

[Pumpkin_Man]

That is pretty sad that some one would pick on a group of kindergarteners like that. They were probably so proud of that scare crow, too. Arson is also a serious crime, and in some cases an arsonist can be brought up on attempted murder in addition to agrivated arson.

I have a neighbor who drives a big rig for a living. He owns his own tractor, and goes to various places to hitch it to a trailor for interstate hauling. His son, who's a bit of a trouble maker, decided to go out in this truck raisig hell. I had a metal garbage can, and he totaly flattened it one time while trying to teach himself to drive this rig.

One Halloween, this jerk and a bunch of his buddies got drunk, and went "cruising" around in this rig, lost control of it and took out an ATM machine. It was a bit on the windy side, so money went flying every which way you could imagine.

Mike

[Haunt Master]

That was bad idea! I don't understand why those idiots would have done something stupidity?? Maybe something went crazy and sick in their minds!

[Halloween_crazyy]

I don't understand why some jerks think it's fun to ruin other people's Haslloween display. People usually work really hard on it and don't derserve to have their displays destroyed.

[Desdemona]

The subject of this thread made me think about something I hadn't in a long, long time. Years (and years) ago, the fall after I graduated from high school, I had a friend that was in his senior year. The school was on a busy corner - 4 lanes on 1 side, 6 plus suicide lane on another. He rode his motorcycle to school every day on those streets. The day after Halloween (I went to college 1/2 day and worked 1/2 day) my mom met me in the garage when I pulled the car in. She had some bad news - my friend had left the school parking lot to head home. It had begun to rain lightly, and one of his tires had hit a place where some kids the night before had smashed some pumpkins that had been stolen from homes in the neighborhood - the rain had made the pulp very slick. He lost control, the motorcycle's front tire hit the curb and my friend went over the handlebars, headfirst into the cement base of a a light stantion on the school grounds, breaking his neck, fracturing his skull and killing him instantly. The police said it was just bad luck that the bike hit the pumpkin guts right there, a yard in either direction and he'd probably have been banged up pretty good, but able to walk away. I have to believe that the kids that smashed the pumpkins couldn't have imagined that happening and all I can hope is that knowing what they did changed them, in some way, for the better.

[Pumpkin_Man]

Nobody ever thinks that a "harmless" prank is going to end in some one getting killed, but very often that's because the pranksters often never stop and think that they might be creating a road hazzard. I will go along with the police, that it was really bad luck, and I certainly don't think that the persons responsible for the pumpkin guts on the road actualy intended for some one to skid out of control on a motorcycle, but as one who rides a motorcycle, I must say that pumpkin guts can be very slippery and dangerous, especialy when wet.

I know this, because on one All Saints Day, while on my way to Mass, a simular thing happened to me. It was a pretty nice day, so I decided I would take the bike. Some prankster had smashed up a whole bunch of pumpkins all over the road, and as I approached the mess, some A H in a Buick 'lane shared' on me, and I had no where to go, so I went right through the pumpkin guts, and started sliding and skidding allover the place. Luckily I didn't wipe out. I was able to stabilize the bike by engaging the clutch lever, but I very well could have been killed.

Now I must say that the driver of that Buick would be most accountable if I had been involved in an accident, but there's also no denying the fact that if the pumpkin guts weren't there for me to go 'slip-slidin away' on, the incident would only have been an agrivation and not a near fatal accident.

So it's allways a good idea to think about these things, especialy when you are dealing with a major artery where there's lots of traffic.

In addition to creating a danger, pumpkin guts also tend to get rotten, and they STINK TO HIGH HEAVENS. I try to run my motorcycle at least once a month during the colder weather to keep the oil around all the piston rings and in the valves. When spring finaly sprung that following year, there were pumpkin guts clinging to the inside of my fenders, and they got rotten. I walked out into my garage in April to get my bike ready for the spring and it smelled like a moldy pumpkin.

Just a few things to consider.



Mike

[Desdemona]

I'm glad your experience had a happy ending, PM. I can honestly say that when I 'm on my guy's Harley with him I watch the road just as closely as he does (of course I have to admit I don't worry at all about what might be thrown up into the bikes innards). Thankfully, weather here permits riding year round so the bike is constantly being used, worked on, cleaned, etc. so we don't have to worry about those kinds of surprises.

[Pumpkin_Man]

Like I said, it was more the fault of that bafoon in the Buick then it was the pranksters who splattered pumpkin guts all over the road, but there are usualy a number of factors that contribute to a disaster, any one of which could prevent the disaster from happening. In my situation you had an inconsiderate driver who crowded me in the same lane while passing me on the left. You had a slippery road condition. Fortunately I had the presence of mind to engage the clutch when the rear wheel started to spin wildly and the bike starded to sway about. If I had panicked and tried to stop, I would have locked up both wheels and then it would have been worse.

As for that High School senior who was killed on his bike, he too probably was confronted with a number of circumstances. If the pumpkin guts weren't on the road, he wouldn't have slid out of control. If he could have moved over a land to avoid them, he would not have skidded. If he didn't hit that curb stone he would be okay.

Mike