The Thing That Wouldn’t Die

The Thing That Wouldn’t Die

We bought this pumpkin, a few weeks before Halloween last year, partially as a festive holiday decoration, but partially because a cat psychic told us that our black cat Nigel, really likes them. Nigel did, once, many years ago, when he was a kitten, enjoy sharpening his claws, and sitting, on a large orange pumpkin, and looked adorable doing so. However, he has completely ignored subsequent pumpkins, including this one. Although this is not the first pumpkin Nigel has ignored since we talked to the cat psychic, certainly by now, Nigel has ignored this pumpkin longer than any pumpkin in his entire life.

 

I’ve done my best to ignore it as well, but the pumpkin has begun to get on my nerves. This pumpkin takes up a lot of precious real estate on our coffee table. Being round, you can’t set anything on top of it, and being bright orange, you can’t help but notice it. I’ve learned to work around it, keeping my coffee and magazines on the end table instead, although that’s getting a bit crowded with my bong and ash-tray there as well. When I spill bong-water on my American Craft magazine, I try not to blame the pumpkin.

 

For ten months now, this traffic cone of the vegetable kingdom has dominated my field of view. The pumpkin still seemed like a perfectly natural Thanksgiving decoration, and did not seem at all out of place, except that it got in the way of Thanksgiving dinner. We live in a very small place. Our coffee table also serves as our dinner table, so the pumpkin served as an over-sized centerpiece at our Thanksgiving feast.

 

By Christmas, the pumpkin seemed a little strange, but rather than buy a Christmas Tree, we just slapped a Santa’s hat on it. The cone-shaped red hat with fuzzy white, trim looked a little Christmasy, but it also kind of looked like we had Santa’s head on our coffee table.

 

For New Year’s Eve, I thought about hollowing out the pumpkin to use as an ice bucket for champagne, but we had eggnog with homemade blackberry brandy instead, which required no ice bucket. So, the pumpkin sat there through the winter. All winter the pumpkin sat between me and the wood-stove preventing me from seeing the fire within, unless I craned my neck, but we weren’t going to throw away a perfectly good pumpkin.

 

When Springtime came, we had no place to put a vase of wildflowers, because the pumpkin took up too much space.

We let it substitute for an Easter egg, although we’ve never celebrated Jesus based holidays in our household. This pumpkin constitutes the first time we ever had an Easter, or Christmas decoration in our home, but it only happened because we had this pumpkin left over from Halloween. Call us reluctant Christians, at least reluctant to throw away our Halloween pumpkin.

Now, its the middle of August, its 103 degrees. I’m melting, but that pumpkin is still as hard as a rock. We dusted it off again today. No soft spots. The great orange orb sits there on my coffee table, mocking me in the summer heat. “What are you still doing here?” I ask it. The heat is getting to me, I’m starting to lose it.

 

I’m afraid that if it somehow makes it to this Halloween, this pumpkin will somehow be rejuvenated, and last another whole year. I couldn’t take that. I’d have to move out. It’ll be me or the pumpkin if it comes to that. I can’t take it any more. I hope I never see another pumpkin for the rest of my life.

On The Money, Trick or Treat

On The Money

Financial Advice for the Working Class

Trick or Treat

I don’t know about your town, but Trick-or-Treat has gotten unbelievably lame around here, so lame that teenagers wouldn’t be caught dead Trick-or-Treating anymore. I don’t blame them a bit.

 

First, Trick-or-Treat now happens in broad daylight. No self-respecting Trick-orTreater ever goes out until after dark. These days, parents, in street clothes, lead their toddlers around the neighborhood dressed in licensed, store bought costumes, depicting trademarked TV superheroes and cartoon characters, in the middle of the afternoon.

 

Even the kids look perplexed. “Why do we do this?” They all seem to say. Why, indeed? All that’s left of Trick-or-Treat is the stuff you spend money on: corporate costumes, corporate candy, dollar store decorations, none of them scary. They’ve outlawed or done away with everything else. How did it come to this?

 

I blame the media. Any time someone got hurt or killed Trick-or-Treating, the Press made a big deal of it. Kid gets hit by a car on August 31, not news, but a kid in a costume gets hit by a car on October 31, big news. The media unnecessarily sensationalized Trick-or-Treat mishaps, like kids eating drugged candy, biting into apples with needles stuck in them, or getting hit by cars on dark roads. Widespread reports of these isolated incidents whipped the public into a frenzy that allowed churches, “do-gooders” and cops to chop the balls off of Halloween.

 

Trick-or-Treat is supposed to be dangerous…dangerous and scary, and it’s supposed to happen at night, in the dark. No flashlights, no reflective material, wearing mostly black, homemade costumes with identity concealing masks, we’d go door to door begging for candy, with the threat of real mischief. Trick-or-Treat meant “cough-up the sweet stuff or we’ll TP your house, leave a flaming bag of dog-do on your porch, or shmush a moldy rotten pumpkin on the windshield of your car.

 

Yes, Trick-or-Treat is all about aggressive panhandling after dark. That’s why it’s called “Beggars Night”. Superheroes don’t beg. Cartoon characters don’t beg. Grotesque, deformed, diseased, and demented people beg. Scary-looking, dangerous and needy people beg. Drug-addicts, bums and street urchins beg. Proper Trick-or-Treat costumes reflect this.

 

When these hideous, pitiful creatures knock on your door, recoil in horror, give them a treat, and thank your lucky stars that you don’t share their fate. Or, scare them off by jumping out of the bushes in your own hideous costume, when they approach the door. But, if you refuse to answer the door, and offer no treats, you probably deserve whatever they do to you because you were too much of a coward to face them directly.

 

I think its high time to reclaim “Beggars Night”. Begging, not prostitution, is the oldest profession. Like prostitution, begging will outlast us all. Begging is a part of life, its part of the fabric of our culture that won’t go away. On “Beggars Night” everyone can be a beggar, and everyone in your community will know how you treat the beggars who come to your door.

 

In this way “Beggars Night” teaches young people how to treat the unfortunate people who will ask them for help throughout their lives, and why its important not to turn your back on them. It seems that too many adults in this area never learned that lesson. While begging is shameful, its not nearly as shameful as it is to be uncharitable to strangers in need.

 

Besides that, “Beggars Night” used to be a hell of a lot of fun! There’s a view of Trick-or-Treat that’s On The Money.