Perhaps one of the most frightening things to happen the week before Halloween is our annual enumeration of scary scenarios that we have imagined afflicting our fair village.
As always, we offer the following words of caution to readers: Beware the sarcasm.
• The village takes a closer look at the old, weathered copy of its articles of incorporation and discovers it is actually dated April 4, 1874, requiring officials to coordinate yet another year of sesquicentennial celebrations.
• The Hinsdale High School District 86 Board doesn’t like any of the candidates for the superintendent job and the search process must begin again. This is especially frightening for School Exec Connect, whose guarantee to present a viable candidate means they have to conduct a new search for free.
• Parents of preschoolers, eager to position their children for admission to Harvard, demand that full-day kindergarten in District 181 last an actual full day.
• All drivers come to a complete stop at stop signs, causing chain reaction accidents all over town.
• Tom Cauley, frustrated with U.S. representatives’ inability to run an efficient meetings, heads to Washington and is immediately elected speaker of the house, thereby ending the longest village presidency in history.
• Pilots who fly into Midway Airport learn of some Hinsdaleans’ complaints about airplane noise. Envious of their multi-million dollar homes, the pilots start buzzing the cupola on village hall just to annoy them.
• All residents who live on a cul-de-sac demand to become a gated community.
• Tired of complaints that a parking space in downtown Hinsdale can’t be found between noon and 3 p.m., village officials propose adding a third story to the parking deck outside Hinsdale Middle School. Lawyers make millions from endless negotiations and lawsuits.
• District 86 board members approve four new social studies classes for the 2024-25 school year and, to the shock of critics, Central students continue to outperform their peers on AP history tests and earn admission to prestigious universities.
• Due to a programming error, the first song played by the new carillon at village hall is Elvis Presley’s “In the Ghetto.”
• Before residents even start their Christmas shopping, Hinsdale merchants run out of scented candles. Wait, that’s impossible.
• Santa is injured at the 57th annual Christmas walk when he is unceremoniously dumped from the basket of the ladder truck so firefighters can respond to an actual call.
• When renovation costs are higher than expected for the new Community Consolidated Elementary District 181 administration center on Ogden Avenue, officials sell naming rights for the building to UChicago Medicine AdventHealth Hinsdale. The name is so long, D181 needs variances from the village for the building sign.
• The Chiefs trade Travis Kelce to the Bears, and he and Taylor Swift move to Hinsdale, where she quickly becomes the Hinsdale Juniors’ most sought-after member in history.
• An unexpected outbreak of avian flu creates a last-minute turkey shortage, driving prices up to more than $50 a pound. Caviar sales skyrocket as Hinsdaleans make menu substitutions for Thanksgiving dinner.
• The village’s name is changed to “Collinsdale” after Mimi Collins and her husband purchase and renovate every historically significant structure in town.
