Jack-O-Lantern

We carved pumpkins on Tuesday because I'm a go-getter. They were beautiful. True masterpieces.

I'm like you, and everyone else ever in the history of the planet, in that I loathe pumpkin carving. It's messy. It's gross. It's a pain in the arse. Then I eat 300 pounds of pumpkin seeds and the next morning wake up and crab-walk to the bathroom like the exorcist girl except faster, etc.

You know. All the same problems you have with pumpkin carving.

But I make us do it every year because the carved pumpkin is trick-or-treaters' green light.

I already get a depressingly-low number of kids at my door every year. Last year we had like 8 and most of those were people Skylar goes to medical school with who dragged their pajamaed children out of bed at 9:30 after Skylar texted them and said I was sad because almost no children came.

If I didn't put out the pumpkins WHO KNOWS what desolation would await me.

Skylar refuses to help with the pumpkin carving because he hates it the same amount as all of us but he doesn't care enough about the trick-or-treaters to put up with it. So he just sits in the kitchen and watches me do all the work and eats 300 pounds of pumpkin seeds and fights me for the bathroom the next morning.

Usually I carve the pumpkins two days before Halloween and put them out on the porch and things are fine. We don't have youthsshshsssss in our neighborhood who are out for pumpkin destruction. They are always left intact. So I don't usually have a problem with this practice.

But. This year it is so cold in Salt Lake City that [some joke. I don't know you guys make one I'm tired WHY DO I ALWAYS HAVE TO DO ALL THE HEAVY LIFTING AROUND HERE]. It legitimately dropped to 12 degrees the other day.

TWELVE.

DEGREES.

IN OCTOBER.

This is basically unconstitutional but it takes so long to challenge things in the courts that by the time we get in front of SCOTUS it will be [insert same joke you made up from above].

I thought this would be a good thing for the pumpkins. In years past it has been warm in October and the heat has made the pumpkins rot quickly. I thought, "well, at least that won't happen this year."

As it turns out, 12 degrees is worse than 80 for the pumpkins. After one night out on the porch I found them basically collapsed on themselves.

The internet said to put them in a cold bath with some bleach. I don't know why. I didn't get that far. I just implicitly trusted the internet because when has it ever led us astray?

I MEAN BESIDES ALL OF THOSE OTHER TIMES.

Skylar came home that night, looked at the bathtub full of bobbing mushy pumpkins, sighed, and then went and finished the remaining pumpkin seeds.

I left them in there overnight and sort of forgot about them. I had a court hearing this morning an hour away from my house and in order to get ready for it I had to get up at an unconstitutional time. I'm not allowed to turn on any lights or breathe or exist in any way if I get up earlier than Skylar without risking actual divorce and murder and not necessarily in that order.

So I stumbled through the dark house, groggily, and made my way into the bathroom where I had completely forgotten about the internet pumpkin project from the night before.

I turned on a light and suddenly caught three bobbing rotted faces staring at me from the bathtub.

Y'all. It's the first time a Jack-O-Lantern actually made someone scream on Halloween.

Anyway, happy Halloween from our pumpkin patch.

~It Just Gets Stranger