this was not what I was looking for... but this is how I feel

a week before Halloween my neighbor witnessed some high school age kids taking a long hard look at the Halloween set up in my front yard
on this same day she also watched a parade of kids from a neighborhood day care center stop and check it out
the two groups of children behaved a little differently

so these high school age kids were checking out our front yard Halloween display in the similar fashion to which many people had over the days leading up to Halloween

it was nothing special...
just the two costumes of years past were doing a fine job standing tall with their scare crow like wooden "T" as a skeletal system

not super spooky... but definitely fun and definitely better than nothing

my neighbor did not watch the whole event unfold
she did see the teen-age kids leave with my semi reflective purple metallic -like "Scream-esque" mask

I tried not to get my heart rate up

I tried to explain to my boys that we are all learning and growing in life

that these kids need to learn to understand to respect other people's stuff
or more simply... that stealing is wrong

honestly...
I thought that the kids would take the mask...
feel bad about taking it
and well...
learn that lesson in life that it does not feel good to have someone else's stuff

not that they would return it but that they would go to bed wishing that they had not stolen someone's stuff

so... today after a post school bike ride with the boys I came home to find that someone had stolen the mask off the other character...
skeleton mask and purple wig

then also stole the smaller costume on the scarecrow like wooden cross
that had a English Bobby hat and zombie eyes attached to the exterior of the hat
the hat that took the place of the void left by the removal of the Scream-esque mask


oh man...
I was not steamed
but I was let down
this sort of thing does not feel good
the lawn decorations are for all who pass by and care to look
not for people to take

I wonder if my neighbor saw anything today

I will admit... when the first mask went missing I did not just shrug my shoulders and forget about it
when I rode home with the kids that day I kept one eye looking for that purple mask
then this...
I did not go chasing after them
but I did wonder if I should have asked for a good description of the kids and then reported this to the police

more than likely both actions were carried on by the same group of people