It’s a slippery slope between a humorous bit of Halloween trickery and serious trouble. That’s what I was thinking in the backseat of the patrol car.
I hadn’t intended to topple anyone’s festive Great Pumpkin pyramid. It never crossed my mind ahead of time that strands of toilet paper added to a certain decorative pumpkin lawn ornament could act as a wind catcher, propelling it with great force into an unfortunately-placed picture window. Or that Mr. Great Pumpkin himself would happen to be home, watching from an upstairs window.
Could I help it if I those plastic pumpkins simply screamed for something to cover their ugliness? And wasn’t toilet paper the perfect political statement on the abomination of plastic pumpkins?
Obviously Mr. Great Pumpkin didn’t think so. Every October, his pumpkin displays at the house next to mine seemed to grow larger — and uglier.
It all started with one inoffensive pumpkin on his front step. No worries, mate. That first one was a genuine gourd, and actually kinda cute. The next year, though, he went plastic. I wrinkled my nose, but didn’t say anything; there were only two ugly plastic orange globes adorning his porch, one on each side of the top step, and from a distance they almost — almost — resembled the real thing.
The following year is when the real trouble began: whole-hog pumpkin mania. A flock of plastic pumpkins dotted his front lawn, accented with a trio of rotating spotlights. Flashing beacons pierced the darkness from an army of fake Jack-o-lantern eyes. I averted my gaze every time I walked by, but a certain Halloween-ish species of PTSD had set in.
This year, he’d made the tasteless display go vertical, lacing pyramids of electrified pumpkins to a series of metal tripods. Towering at least six feet in the air, the tacky yard art just begged for a little neighborly commentary. Toilet paper seemed the perfect medium.
“You’re not really arresting her, are you, officer?”
It was his voice at the driver’s window. Mr. Great Pumpkin. If I could’ve sunk through the slightly-smelly police upholstery to the ground, I would have.
The cop in the front seat nodded, not looking up from his paperwork. “Yep. You’re the reporting party, aren’t you?”
Mr. Great Pumpkin winced. “Well, yeah. . . but I thought you’d just yell at her.”
The cop kept writing. “Yelling isn’t part of our training. ‘Arrest,’ now that’s something that we do.”
“But. . . but. . . I’m sure the damage wasn’t intentional.” Mr. Pumpkin’s eyebrows knitted together as he glanced at me in the back seat of the patrol car, concern registering on his face. A very nice face, with hazel eyes, I noticed. Not that I should be thinking about such things at the moment.
“We’ll let the District Attorney figure that out.” Glancing up, the cop pointed to the shattered plate glass window with his pen. A tattered sheet of toilet paper fluttered in the wind from one of the jagged shards. “All I see is evidence of tampering with a seasonal display, and an eyewitness who positively identified the culprit. Malicious mischief and property damage over $950 bucks. That’s enough to book her.”
A pained expression contracted my nemesis’s features. “What if. . . what if you’ve got that ever-so-slightly wrong?”
The cop set his pen down on the console with an audible thump. “You changing your story?” His voice was gruff.
Mr. Great Pumpkin straightened. “Not changing my story, exactly. Just trying to clear up a little confusion.” I could almost hear the little gears whirling in his head. “I wasn’t calling it in for the property damage, I was worried she might have cut herself with the glass.” He glanced back at me. “Right, honey?”
Honey?
“But it looks like she’s fine,” he continued blithely, a slow grin on his lips. “No blood or anything. And we have reservations at Tito’s for seven.” He glanced at his watch.
The officer and I both glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Six fifty-five.
Tito’s is the Italian joint in town. Reservations are booked out for at least a month. The officer sighed. His witness — and his case — were clearly going south. Two minutes later, the handcuffs were off, and Mr. Great Pumpkin and I were standing side-by-side on his driveway. One arm draped familiarly around my shoulders, and he grinned down at me. Exhaling in relief, I grinned back.
The cop rolled his eyes. I could still hear him grumbling as he drove out of sight.
“Tito’s, huh?” I said, grinning up at my rescuer.
Dropping his arm, Mr. Great Pumpkin scratched his head. “Well, I’m afraid I don’t really have reservations. Would a drive-through do?”
“Perfect! But I’m buying, And I’m happy to pay for that window.”
“It wasn’t so much the window I was worried about.” His eyes swept the mangled metal tripods and crushed plastic pumpkins adorning the shrubs. “That was kind of a lot of work.”
Which is how I found myself next evening holding three metal legs together while Greg — Mr. Great Pumpkin — zip-tied them into a tripod. Beside us sat a stack of orange pumpkins. Size extra-large. All plastic, of course.
“I’m almost glad this happened,” Greg was saying as he tested a twinkling array of LED lights. “The extra-large ones were on sale, so I got twice what I had before. It’ll look fantastic!”
I managed not to vomit, but it wasn’t easy. “Great!” I said, forcing a smile. “Everything’s back to normal, now!”
“Well, almost.”
Reaching inside a bag on the ground, he pulled out a roll of toilet paper and handed it to me, those hazel eyes twinkling. ‘Let’s do it up right.”
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