While the rest of us were hunkering down and eating junk food during Hurricane Sandy, a Brightest Young Things writer and his pals descended on Georgetown for some pumpkin-themed pranking. This is one of those quirky things that we see every so often in Washington that could be clever but verges on obnoxious.

In the case of Whimsy v. Property Rights, let’s take a look at the evidence.

The Crime: A BYT writer described on the site as Jeff, along with some pals, steals a pumpkin from the front of Q Street NW home in Georgetown.

The Band: They then proceeded to carve “SLAYER,” which definitely counts against them. I’m getting awfully tired of this demon metal renaissance. You want to really freak some squares, you carve JIMMY BUFFETT in their squash.

The Penance: The pranksters then made spicy roasted pumpkin seeds and returned them, along with the Slayer pumpkin, to the Georgetown house.

The Reaction: When Jeff came back to the house later, he discovered that the Georgetown residents had taken the pumpkin inside. “I guess they weren’t too scared after all,” he writes. Or they didn’t want a Slayer pumpkin on their doorstep!

I think the verdict is that this prank was OK, mostly because roasted pumpkin seeds are delicious. Having your regular pumpkin magically transformed into them is a great deal.

Pumpkin photo by Shutterstock