Thoughtless Neighbors It was one thing to still have Christmas decorations up in January, thought Natalie Hunt, but Halloween decorations were something else entirely. Mr. Shorenstein’s fence was still lined with cotton cobwebs, and the front yard was still covered in those pretend cardboard tombstones. A scarecrow with a big jack-o’-lantern head sat on the front porch, and the pumpkin had turned black and rotted. To leave all that ghoulishness up into November was appalling, but to leave it up when the rest of the neighborhood was celebrating Christmas? Natalie Hunt was too polite to say anything to Mr. Shorenstein, of course. She never bumped into him at the market or when walking her Pekinese, so she had no way of asking him aside from the unspeakable rudeness of knocking on his front door. Nothing spoke louder than a good example, though, and so Natalie Hunt told her husband to take down their decorations exactly on December 26th. The rest of the neighborhood followed suit a week or two later, and Mr. Shorenstein still didn’t get the message. However rude, it was time for an intervention. She marched over to Mr. Shorenstein’s house, tray of brownies in hand, preparing to spend half an hour listening to his medical problems before addressing the decoration issue. Before she got to the front door she smelled the rotting pumpkin. That was positively the worst smell she had ever encountered! How could Mr. Shorenstein live in such a manner? Almost gagging, she walked to the front door and knocked. A host of flies came from the rotting pumpkin. Then Natalie Hunt saw the rotting face beneath the rotting pumpkin, and understood why Mr. Shorenstein wasn’t paying attention to his decorating.
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