The Scarecrow Affair

Ah, the idyllic picture of American Halloween fun. A porch decorated for Halloween, complete with a family of scarecrows. My kids and I made these, using our clothes, a few days before Halloween and had them all set up for the big night. Despite Halloween’s reputation as a night of both treating and tricking, our scarecrows survived the night without incident. Then this morning I awoke to find this…

A massacre…on my front porch…just outside my living room…my sanctuary where I watch Billy the Exterminator with my kids. When something like this happens, you run through a familiar set of emotions. At first I was stunned and puzzled. How could this have happened? Was it the wind? It was windy last night. As I studied the crime scene and sifted through the evidence, my puzzlement turned to outrage. The little boy’s legs were pinned between the chair and table and couldn’t have been blown all the way across the porch. 

The little girl’s shoes were off her feet—the wind couldn’t do that. Her torso was laid out too carefully. My shirt was untucked, my gloves pulled off, and my head sitting in the middle of the sidewalk in front of the house. 

The wind couldn’t have done any of this!

All the evidence pointed to one disturbing conclusion. Someone massacred our scarecrow family. They were dismembered and scattered in sick and twisted ways by someone with no regard for stuffed dummies and holiday decorations. 

As this realization sunk in, my outrage turned to a desire for revenge, vigilantism. My mind raced as I pictured a handful of mangy teenagers romping on my porch, tearing up our scarecrows. How could I catch them? How could I get revenge? Could I be charged with something if one of those mangy teens was crushed under a log deadfall trap on my front porch, caught red-handed massacring my scarecrows again? Maybe I should get a motion detecting porch light…and blow gun.

Later when my daughter woke up, I asked her a few questions. You know, just doing my job and ruling out other suspects…besides mangy teens. I asked if she, her brother, and their two friends had noticed if the scarecrows had been knocked over when they were rampaging throughout the house and yard last night (my kids and friends). At first my daughter, rather haltingly, said no. On a hunch, I pressed her further. She eventually admitted that she took one of the heads off to show her friends. I pressed her further and she also admitted that she took her scarecrow apart. Then she sang like a canary. She squealed on her brother, saying he had torn his scarecrow to pieces. Later I questioned him, alone. I used the oldest trick in the book and told him his sister rolled over on him…and he too sang like a canary. He told me how she had started the carnage and he joined in after.

Once I recovered from the shock that my own children, and not mangy teens, had committed this shocking act I realized I had been a little too quick to doubt the safety of Shandon and the character of my fellow Shandonistas…or at least their mangy teenage progeny.

When Santa's sleigh goes out on my lawn in a few weeks, you can bet they'll be a Santa cam on him day and night!