It was Halloween time, and Jackson was excited to go trick-or-treating and watch scary movies with his best friend. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen because his friend was busy. Jackson then decided with another friend to pull an awesome prank. They decided to go TP someone’s house. The night of the “TP-ing” they covered every inch of the yard with toilet paper, pasted the driveway with ketchup, and smashed all the pumpkins. Jackson was looking forward to all the talk about the prank the next day but instead felt guilty because the family cleaned up the mess all morning and ended up getting sick.
In the October issue of Teen Ink, Jackson Lloyd writes an article about one of his past Halloween experiences called “Lessons in Toilet Paper.” I have never gone TP-ing before in my life. Yes, I know. How lame, right? It’s not that I don’t want to go because I do. TP-ing is something that I think all teenagers should do at some point just to say they had experienced it. Although if I were to go tp-ing, I would end it at toilet papering the tress and bushes. What Jackson and his friends did to the house they toilet papered was not right. They took a practical prank too far. Ketchuping the driveway and smashing pumpkins isn’t a joke anymore. It is cruel and unnecessarily damaging an innocent person’s property. On top of it, the family spent hours cleaning up a mess that they didn’t deserve and got sick because of someone else’s thoughtless actions. If I were ever to do something that extreme, I would feel so guilty and would regret doing it every time I see the person. I completely understand why Jackson felt guilty because what he did to the family’s house was mean. Jackson definitely should have apologized to the family though, no matter how hard it would have been to do. Also, I want people to talk about me on good terms and not think of me as a bad disrespectful kid. I want to be known my successful accomplishments rather than a practical, irresponsible prank.