To the Person Who Smashed My Pumpkin:

I'm Not Bitter

To the Person Who Smashed My Pumpkin:

By Dan Testa, Flathead Beacon, 10-29-07

You couldn’t resist, could you? You saw that squat, perfect orange jack-o-lantern, helplessly grinning at you as it sat – defenseless – on my front porch. And you had to destroy it, leaving its remains strewn along Fifth Avenue West, with tire tracks through its shattered shell. I picked up the pieces on a gray, Saturday morning, pre-coffee. A grim start to the weekend.

That pumpkin was a squash of beauty. I pulled it out of a farm stand bin, incredulous that no one else had snagged it: symmetrical and deep orange, with a long, jaunty stem. I painstakingly carved each of its fangs to perfection with a thin, serrated blade – shaving orange curls out of the corners so as to get the candlelight to project a slight glow through the pumpkin’s hide around the eyes and mouth.

Some people like to get creative with their jack-o-lantern. Not me. I prefer the Classic American tradition: fangs, evil eyes and a skull nose. Spooky, but not necessarily scary. But still, you pretty much get one shot a year to carve a pumpkin and this was my best ever. If the Headless Horseman intended to lob another one at old Ichabod Crane, he couldn’t craft a better pumpkin if he tried.

Anyway, it’s irrelevant at this point. The pumpkin is dead, indistinguishable from any other pile of pungent, organic waste. Strangely, you left the other jack-o-lantern on my porch gently tipped over onto its back, staring up, powerless to prevent the kidnapping of its companion. I don’t quite get that. If you’ve got the nerve to creep up to my house in the dead of night and smash one pumpkin, why not go all the way and smash the other?

Maybe you couldn’t carry two at a time. Maybe you worried your vandalistic giggles would wake me and I would stumble out of the house, bleary-eyed, chasing you with a hockey stick. (I would have.) Maybe your cretin friend was driving and urging you to hurry up and get on with it, to smash my Classic American jack-o-lantern on the pavement and continue with your night of cruising around, listening to terrible music and hanging out at a gas station parking lot.

Ah, what’s the use? I’ve already gotten over it. Halloween looms, and with it the costume parties, pounds of candy, and excited, shivering trick-or-treaters ringing the doorbell that the holiday brings. I could stand behind a tree with a garden hose waiting for the doofus who tries to nab the lone pumpkin remaining on the porch. But I’ve got better things to do. Hopefully you, pumpkin-smasher, will find something better to do with your time, too.

This story was originally published by the Flathead Beacon.

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By Dan Testa, Flathead Beacon, 10-29-07 | comments (4) | email story | print story

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Comments

By tim huffman, 10-30-07

Let it go...That way lies madness. Years ago, a stranger at our halloween party became obsessed with the idea that one of our jack-o-lanterns was made from the pumpkin stolen from his girlfriend's porch on the other side of town. He would not stop yelling about how lovingly he had selected the pumpkin for her and what pigs we all were for having broken her heart. I had to throw him out in the physical sense of Grab, Twist, Throw. Years later, a dude rode by me on his bike and flipped me a long and focused bird. It is only recently I realized it was the pumpkin nut. To have a healthy mind, one must not regret lost trucks, guitars, or apparently, pumpkins.

By Marion, 10-30-07

It is truly sad that so many are so bored and lacking in feeling that they vandalize. Imagine the empty feeling of someone wh cannot enjoy a holiday except by destruction, thay are to be pitied.

By catnapping, 10-30-07

I hope his innards weren't wasted, at least. (although, personally, I think the innards of smaller pumpkins are tastier.)

When I walk by the Albertsons, and see the hundreds of pumpkins displayed there in the parking lot, I think of the piles of bison, slaughtered for their furs - the meat left to rot.

Millions of folks in our world are starving, but still we Americans buy nutritous vegetables...only to gut and carve them...the squashmeat left to rot.

http://theoddneighbor.blogspot.com/search/label/missoula

By pumpkin-smashing pendejo, 10-30-07

Sorry about that, dude. I didn't know you would take it so hard.

Boo!

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