‘Tis the season to beware. It might be the season for a Darwin Award, as well.
A person dressed in an inflatable gingerbread man suit and a Santa hat was seen wandering around an Arlington, Virginia, neighborhood, according to WUSA-TV. Considering the season, that’s not so very odd.
What is strange is that this gingerbread man allegedly walked to the door of a local residence and tried to open it. He was also seen standing outside of another home looking in the window. That’s not only odd, it’s creepy.
A neighbor who didn’t want to be identified at the time — presumably because the gingerbread man was still out roaming the streets — said, “My wife said, ‘hey, listen, there’s this guy, he didn’t ring the doorbell, he’s just standing there and he’s in this gingerbread man costume’ and I’m, like, gingerbread man — what?”
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The homeowner said, “We noticed the door was trying to be pushed. We look at the camera — I’m looking at this guy in a costume.”
It was so weird the homeowner didn’t know what to do. The gingerbread man wasn’t brandishing a weapon or trying to kick down the door. But something was definitely off, so he decided to report the incident and called the non-emergency police line.
“I just told them, listen, I just want to report this. It’s not an emergency,” the homeowner told WUSA. “Some guy came with a gingerbread man costume, and they [the operator] were, like, a gingerbread man? I’m, like, yes, a gingerbread man costume. I have the video.”
Another neighborhood witness, Lindsey Churchill, told WSUA she saw the gingerbread man around an hour earlier on Wednesday evening.
Would you open fire if a man in a gingerbread costume broke into your home?
“We have a big picture window that faces North George Mason. All of a sudden, my dogs were going crazy, barking out the window and I looked out, and there was a giant blow-up gingerbread man costume out on the sidewalk,” Churchill said.
The sight of a creepy gingerbread man on the sidewalk outside her home shocked Churchill. “We kind of locked eyes and the gingerbread man went on his way. So weird.”
Several other neighborhood witnesses also spotted the inflatable gingerbread man wandering around throughout the evening. Needless to say, they all thought it was weird — in a bad way.
Churchill said, “It was not holly jolly.”
Another neighborhood witness said, “It is kind of like a horror movie. In this costume this whole ordeal, what was the goal? Just to see if we’re home? Or to enter the house? It’s a good thing we had our doors locked,” he said.
What would you do if your doorbell notification alerted you that a creepy gingerbread man was standing outside your front door? That’s what WUSA reporter Katie Lusso asked in a post on social media platform X.
Your doorbell notification goes off and this guy is standing at your front door…
What do you do??
Make sure you tune in to @wusa9 for more on the #Arlington Gingerbread Man at 11pm @JeffAckermann @leslifoster @LorenzoHall @Scott_McCrary @TJCutini pic.twitter.com/qR9xYtOYhq
— (@KatieLusso) December 15, 2023
Where I live, most people would have grabbed a gun, called the cops and, if the strange beast somehow broke through the door — maybe the gingerbread man had a death wish.
Police said one witness “approached the subject outside and he reportedly stated he was looking for a friend’s house,” according to the Washington Post.
The strange thing is, the police never spoke with the gingerbread man themselves.
It’s like we’re living in a twisted fairy tale these days.
In this version, the gingerbread man is more like the one found in the 2005 horror movie than the one who ran away from grandma’s house because he didn’t want to be eaten. The fairy tale version has the gingerbread man eventually being tricked by a fox and eaten. In this version, it’s more like the gingerbread man was looking for something — or someone — to eat.
Gingerbread man, beware. The whole world’s on edge. A stupid prank — if that’s what this was — can get you killed.
