Who would do this?

[Marmalady]

It being Halloween (my son LOVES Halloween!) I bought a big pumpkin and having scooped out as much flesh as I could (pumpkin pie, mmm) I carved the most diabolical face I could into it. My lad reckoned it was the best I'd ever done.

So when the light started to fade, I set it on the big brick gatepost at the entrance to my drive, with three tea lights inside it, and though I say so myself it looked pretty darn good. Then I set off with my boy (aka the Grim Reaper) to go trick or treating. I suppose we were away about an hour...

When we came back, I realised I couldn't see the pumpkin glowing (it had got dark by this time) and thought, 'Oh drat, the tea lights have gone out, I'll have to re-light them'. But when we got nearer, I realised the reason I couldn't see the pumpkin was because it had gone. Vanished. Totally. I looked around in case it had just fallen off, but no sign of it.

Someone obviously had taken it, but why? Because they didn't approve of Halloween and trick or treating? Because they hadn't the time / patience / imagination to carve their own? Or just to be a dick so they could take it and smash it somewhere?

I know it's only a pumpkin, but I took time and trouble carving it.. I don't know, it's just really annoying

[LillFilly]

Someone stole my Halloween decorations one year, it was a really depressing find. I'm sorry for you. If it makes you feel any better, think of how awed and jealous they probably were of your pumpkin! Maybe explain it to your son that maybe another kid gets to enjoy it now too, even though taking it was wrong.

[Mikkel]

If you got a picture of it, the most important thing, as I see it, is that you had the satisfaction of carving it well.

Even so, may the pumpkin thieves not have any pleasure of their Halloween.

[taxguykarl]

I'd say them being a dick is the most likely explanation here.

I've seen quite a few of my carved pumpkins smashed in the street
At least there was not a big cash outlay....but still.

[Andara Bledin]

We spotted several smashed pumpkins on the drive in to work this morning.

That's my guess, as well. Some kids are just jerks.

Some adults, too. >_>

^-.-^

[Marmalady]

Well, I had my answer - it was just to be a dick.

Found the pumpkin yesterday afternoon, thrown over onto the rough part of the meadow opposite my house, smashed in half.

Well, I hope that made your tiny mind happy, a***hole.

[BookstoreEscapee]

My parents' neighbors used to do 5 big pumpkins (one for each member of the family; size scaled to the member who painted it), and one year they all got smashed. Funny thing was, in that neighborhood their son would normally be the most likely culprit.

[AmbrosiaWriter]

This is pretty much why we don't do pumpkin carving anymore. If we do, we put the pumpkin somewhere where the jerks can't get it. Inside in a window, or up on the roof, or set it up in a tree that you need a ladder in order to reach it.

[Jester]

The most likely culprits are teenaged boys. This is not to say that teenaged boys now are worse than they were before, but rather that they are pretty much the same as they've ever been, because when I was a teenager, there was certainly plenty of this shit going on, and it wasn't new back then in the 80's, either.

For the record, while I enjoyed the splat! and explosive power of a pumpkin, I was not one of those hooligans who would steal one from someone's yard, let alone a carved one. Even as a teenaged hooligan myself, stealing something from someone's yard, especially something that they had clearly carved themselves, just seemed....rude.

But then, not all teenaged boys have the same sense of decorum I had at that age.

[BookstoreEscapee]

Could be worse. At the fictional university on the TV show NUMB3RS there is a tradition of dropping pumpkins off the highest point on campus...after dipping them in liquid nitrogen.

[RootedPhoenix]

Even if it's not new, it makes me sad. *offers hugs/comfort to Marmalady*

[DeltaSierra]

People Suck. That's the long and short of it. One of my best friends was given a Scooby-Doo Christmas decoration a couple years ago by his Mom (we've called him Scooby as long as I can remember, ) and it was one of those lighted inflatable decorations that have an electric pump to keep pumped up and is lit up from inside. It was wearing a santa hat and was just fantastic. The night he got it he set it up in his front yard along with a bunch of other decorations. The next morning, somebody had stolen Scooby