Virginia Arthur's Blog - Posts Tagged "smashing-pumpkins"
They're Casing my Pumpkin
It's Halloween. If anyone had caught me on film last night (film? film you say? What the hell is "film"?), I would have confirmed rumors that I am nuts (but gosh, in a good way). A few days ago, after a very very long time, I selected my perfect pumpkin out of a giant cardboard bin at a grocery outlet store.
I love my pumpkin with all my heart and held it like a baby in the grocery store line. People noticed. I think I even bent down and kissed it on it's cute little pepo head. I mumbled coos into it's cucurbitous ear. Was I embarrassed, me, a woman entering middle age observed caressing and kissing a pumpkin in line at the grocery store? Maybe. A little.
My pumpkin, who I call my little pumpkin, has been in at least four different locations here at home. Then, yesterday, I noticed three teenagers walking by and despite that I never really SAW them looking at my pumpkin, say DIRECTLY, I have never seen these teenagers on my street before...They were obviously casing my little pumpkin in preparation for their no-doubt Halloween shenanigans that always include, yes, killing pumpkins and not just killing them, but torturing them. Dropping them from trees, tall buildings, throwing them out of car windows, smashing them in streets. The teenagers looked at me and I looked at them as I migrated over to my pumpkin, at the base of the mailboxes and daring them to say something, picked it up, cradled it, kissed it, mumbled, "I won't let them hurt you" into it's ear, if it had one...At this, they seemed to speed up walking down the street.
Since then my little pumpkin has been all over the front yard. Of course, it's off the street now and on the stairs but then it was on the deck. Then it was back on the stairs but higher up...then it was back by the mailboxes but I kept looking out the window checking on it. It's been quite stressful.
Botanically speaking, pumpkins love teenagers because a pumpkin is a fruit and inside the fruit are seeds and unless the tough outer rind is opened, the seeds stay locked in so intellectually and philosophically, I understand that the teenagers are in fact, perhaps, little pumpkin's best friends. If you love something let it go, if it comes back, if you find it smashed into smithereens in the street the next day, etc. etc.
The best thing I could do, botanically speaking, is leave it out by the mailboxes...but no, tonite, Halloween night, I am bringing it inside the house.
We'll have a nice dinner, a glass of wine, and maybe eat some candy. Maybe around, say Thanksgiving, I'll put it back outside where it can commence rotting in the yard.
I love my pumpkin with all my heart and held it like a baby in the grocery store line. People noticed. I think I even bent down and kissed it on it's cute little pepo head. I mumbled coos into it's cucurbitous ear. Was I embarrassed, me, a woman entering middle age observed caressing and kissing a pumpkin in line at the grocery store? Maybe. A little.
My pumpkin, who I call my little pumpkin, has been in at least four different locations here at home. Then, yesterday, I noticed three teenagers walking by and despite that I never really SAW them looking at my pumpkin, say DIRECTLY, I have never seen these teenagers on my street before...They were obviously casing my little pumpkin in preparation for their no-doubt Halloween shenanigans that always include, yes, killing pumpkins and not just killing them, but torturing them. Dropping them from trees, tall buildings, throwing them out of car windows, smashing them in streets. The teenagers looked at me and I looked at them as I migrated over to my pumpkin, at the base of the mailboxes and daring them to say something, picked it up, cradled it, kissed it, mumbled, "I won't let them hurt you" into it's ear, if it had one...At this, they seemed to speed up walking down the street.
Since then my little pumpkin has been all over the front yard. Of course, it's off the street now and on the stairs but then it was on the deck. Then it was back on the stairs but higher up...then it was back by the mailboxes but I kept looking out the window checking on it. It's been quite stressful.
Botanically speaking, pumpkins love teenagers because a pumpkin is a fruit and inside the fruit are seeds and unless the tough outer rind is opened, the seeds stay locked in so intellectually and philosophically, I understand that the teenagers are in fact, perhaps, little pumpkin's best friends. If you love something let it go, if it comes back, if you find it smashed into smithereens in the street the next day, etc. etc.
The best thing I could do, botanically speaking, is leave it out by the mailboxes...but no, tonite, Halloween night, I am bringing it inside the house.
We'll have a nice dinner, a glass of wine, and maybe eat some candy. Maybe around, say Thanksgiving, I'll put it back outside where it can commence rotting in the yard.
