Kids With Sharp Objects

It’s never a good idea to give knives to children. Unless you’re carving pumpkins. Then, the sharper, the better.

This is the first year I’ve trusted all the kids with their own deadly blades. Previously, they’d given me ample reason to doubt them, despite their supposedly improving maturity levels. Growing up isn’t a linear process. There’s room for backtracking, like when my ten-year-old used her new Cub Scout pocket knife to chase her sisters through the house. Not that Mae would ever do that. All instances of attempted murder in this newsletter are strictly hypothetical. In the incident that didn’t happen, I don’t think the theoretical assailant meant to hurt anyone. She was just showing her sisters that they should give her whatever she wanted or else, even if she never intended to follow through on her threats. It was like nuclear saber rattling, but at a much smaller scale. The megalomaniacs of tomorrow are getting started today.

I first passed out the cutting implements at the start of October. That was the earliest date it was socially acceptable to go all-in on Halloween. Any sooner and ghost season would have encroached on summer, tempting fate in dangerous ways. In Indiana, we seldom get a meaningful amount of snow before January, with the exception of Halloween, which often features a freak out-of-season weather event. There’s nothing quite like trick-or-treating in a blizzard. I didn’t want to risk the early arrival of winter by getting spooky at the wrong time. Hypothermia can wait until the end of the month.

For the first few minutes after I handed out sharp objects, everything was fine. Then, suddenly it wasn’t. I should have known who would cut themselves first. It was…