Crazy Crap Item #6: The part where my pumpkins go missing

As is well known, I live on a street that approximates Mayberry. Tree-lined, filled with friendly neighbors, overrun by small children. And yet, there is a menacing danger that lurks. To whit:

In preparation for Halloween, I purchased a variety of pumpkins: 1 large, 2 medium, 4 mini. I arranged them casually yet attractively next to our front door, as if to say, "Yes, we are aware it is autumn."

Several days passed, and as I was returning from some errands one afternoon, I noticed that my 4 mini pumpkins were missing. Gone. Nary a trace. So I asked Eamon, Did you take our mini pumpkins inside? No, he replies, and suggests that the most likely scenario is that our neighborhood's many 4-year-olds have made off with them.

No, I assure him, our 4-year-olds are no such brigands. They might inspect the pumpkins, perhaps even remove them from our steps so as to better stack and restack them, or to imagine them as transformer robots or superheroes. But make off with them completely? I think not.

I suggest perhaps the squirrels have spirited them away. Eamon assures me that squirrels are much too small and the mini pumpkins much too large for such a scenario.

I mention the fact of the missing pumpkins to my neighbor Ann, who confirms my belief that the 4-year-olds -- our 4-year-olds -- would never abscond with gourds of any kind.

Later that morning, I am approached by Delores, our grandmotherly neighbor who lives across the street. Apparently she has overheard my pumpkin discussion with Ann from her perch by her livingroom window. She does not admit as much, but instead launches in:

"I watched the squirrels haul off your pumpkins! They dragged them there, under your car, then fought over them like children. Just like children. Then one of them dragged them up into the tree in my front yard."

The squirrels of Norwood -- they are badass.