I’ve told you about the first-floor-back neighbors, the Kallikacks? She’s a short-tempered drug addict; he’s a foul-mouthed, physically abusive ex-con (their daughter has been taken away several times by Child Welfare, which in NJ, means “putting her into a crack house and not feeding her”).
Anyway, I have had surprisingly little trouble with the Kallikacks. Till now. There is an as-yet uninflated 8-foot-tall Scooby-Do holding a jack-o-lantern on the front lawn. This provides me with an ethical dilemma. Do I:
• Say and do nothing, and have my blood pressure rise every time I enter or leave my house and see this horror right next to my front foor?
• Confront the violent druggies and find a polite way of asking them to move it around back, somehow without using the phrases “fucking hideous” or “tasteless?”
• Find out how much it cost, put that amount into their mailbox and slit Scooby’s throat with a shiv?
I’m afraid Scooby is the thin edge of the lawn-ornament wedge. If they are capable of this, come Xmas, will I find an 8-foot inflatable Jesus on the front lawn? At least in that case, I can plead Judaism and reenact the Passion Play, with real nails . . .
Do it anonymously (the throat-slitting). Leave behind a razor blade hidden in a Scooby Snack (It will have to be a fake razor blade, of course). If you’re confronted after the fact, point out how dangerous it can be at Halloween to eat the treats before they’ve been examined by a responsible adult.
I just e-mailed the question to The Ethicist at the NY Times Magazine.
The front lawn is common property, and getting commoner by the minute. Thing is, three families use the front entrance—the Kallikacks live out back and use the back entrance. But they are inflicting Scooby on our front door! Where people can see it! And assume I am somehow responsible for—or approving of—such atrocities!
Option one: put a pinhole in one of the Scooby’s seams (the more concealed the better) so the air leaks out of him over a period of hours/days. No one will suspect such insidious foul play.
I say put a pinhole somewhere where Scooby’ll develop a slow leak and slowly expire, like Neuroman suggested. Don’t leave money in the mailbox though because they might just use it to buy another Scooby or worse, one of those giant singing, dancing spooky light trees that are motion-activitated and will sing to you (or at you) every time you walk past it.
Remember, Scooby Doo is a series with good morals about using your head and being skeptical about what you observe. The ghost was never a ghost, it was someone pretending to be one.
So… he’s a Doper at heart in more ways than one.
On the other hand… no class. So… if they use the back stairs, move it to the back stairs. Tell them it was in your way. Simple, innit?
Well, y’see, vandalizing someone else’s property—no matter how hideous, and how tempting—is just not something I feel comfortable with. Especially when the someone is a violent ex-con and his equally unstable druggie girlfriend. However . . . If Scooby cost $50? It would be worth putting $50 into their mailbox so I could slip a shiv between Scooby’s shoulderblades.
I just know if I have to see that thing every time I walk in or out of my front door, I will have a stroke sooner or later.
If Eve blew him up, then on Haloween she could cut a slit in the back and climb inside. With some eyeholes and sense of mischief, she waits for the kiddies to come by and then BOO! the eight-foot Scooby jumps out at them and everybody laughs and laughs and laughs.
Can anybody else picture Eve wearing an orange-on-black jack’o’lantern sweater-vest on haloween? I know I can!
Refill Scooby with helium instead of regular air. Rig some sort of release mechanism so that the next morning, the first person out the door will release the mechanism so Scooby goes to his just reward in the sky. As they all stand there, watching Scooby being “Raptured” you can have belly laughs at their expense.
Sorry, it made me laugh. Even if no-one else.