Death of a Pumpkin

I bought a pair of pumpkins at the farmer’s market yesterday. Had one from the previous week as well but the one pumpkin just looked a little lonely sitting on our front porch steps, so I figured he needed a friend. Ended up with two because there was a deal on buying two. Plus, I found two that spoke to me and I couldn’t choose between them.

Now, I don’t carve any of them. Fine detail work is just not in my skill set. But it is near Halloween and you need to have pumpkins around. I figure better sitting on my front porch steps for a couple of weeks than being turned into compost. I mean a pumpkin has just one job and it would be sad if they didn’t get to fulfill it.

So I’m up early this morning. For some reason, I couldn’t sleep so I thought I’d just get up for a bit and then go back to bed. I hear some rustling outside but we have all sort of creatures around so I didn’t think anything more of it. A couple of minutes later I walked by the front door and looked out and this raccoon was gnawing at one of the pumpkins. He had rolled it off the steps but it was stuck against a bush so he couldn’t move it anymore. But he was perfectly fine having a little snack right there.

I knocked on the window hoping to scare him off but the call of the pumpkin was too strong. Plus, we do feed them and they really have very little fear anymore. He kind of gave me a look like “Dude, you aren’t coming out this early in the morning, so just let me eat in peace”. (I’m very good at interpreting raccoon looks by the way). I saw him digging into the hole he had chewed and pulling out some of the pumpkin guts.

Poor pumpkin. He only lasted one night. Now he has a nice little hole chewed in him and there are some pumpkin guts and seeds strewn on the sidewalk leading to our house. In order to preserve the others, I’m going to leave this one out figuring that the raccoon will go for the easy target.

And this is why we can’t have nice things.

I remember an episode of an old sit com. The main character was coming down with a cold and she said something to the effect of “three days coming, three days with you and three days leaving”. This is actually just about right. I started feeling bad last Saturday so that would be Saturday to Monday coming. Then Tuesday to Thursday with me and that matches since Wednesday was the worst day. The three days leaving ends today so I should wake up tomorrow feeling great. I strongly suspect it will linger a bit but it is just a minor nuisance now.

At the very least, I feel good enough to go back to the gym. That and a dance lesson are on the agenda for tomorrow. Is it strange that I’m kind of looking forward to Monday to get back to my routine?

Oh well, it is time to watch some football and see my fantasy team take another dive.