"Up here, anywhere around here, when you don't leave, you get a warning shot. Just get the (expletive) out of here."
This was the explanation given by Rhonda Kalapach when her husband was arrested Saturday for firing four rifle shots at a carload of Jehovah's Witnesses who had tried to visit the Kalapach home. Rhonda noted that the evangelists ignored repeated demands to leave and forced her husband to react the way that he did. "They just weren't moving fast enough," she said.
What effect will the Kalapach Incident have on the future of door-to-door solicitation? Will those pesky cookie-selling Girl Scouts be forced to don bullet-proof vests and track shoes for a faster exit? Will those ubiquitous trick-or-treaters be admonished to check for live ammo in their candy? Will those sneaky meter readers have to look out for snares and booby traps when they stumble through the household shrubbery? Will those irritating UPS deliverymen have to sprint back to the truck after ringing your doorbell in the middle of dinner and scaring the bejesus out of the dog?
How can one little incident like this create long-lived hysteria, you ask?
Ponder this. Every Halloween in my lifetime, parents have insisted on inspecting their little trick-or-treaters' loot before it is consumed. "Some mean people put razor blades in candy trying to hurt kids," they say. "I have to check it out first. By the way, Timmy, you don't really like coconut candy, do you? I'll just keep these Mounds and Almond Joys for myself."
In my 63 years of existence, I never heard a verifiable report of razor-laden Halloween candy. Still, every year, the Halloween edition of "Action News" or "Eyewitness News" ends with the local news anchor sternly admonishing parents to beware of torn wrappers on that trick-or-treat loot.
Perhaps the Halloween 2011 edition of "Eyewitness News" will end with - "Kids, if you get a warning shot instead of a Snickers bar from that house down the block, just get the (expletive) out of there."
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