flagrantdisregard

I’ll always remember the Halloween of 2007 as the one where I barely avoided pumpkiny doom twice in one day.

We started the festivities by carving pumpkins in the afternoon. The kids were very gung-ho about it all until I removed the tops and showed them what had to happen next. “You want us to stick our hands in there?” Obviously, “we carved pumpkins” really means I carved pumpkins.

I’d had high hopes that The Boy would appreciate the gooeyness of it. He did make more of an effort than his sister but I’m the one who injured a finger scraping the insides and nearly lost an eye when the cheap, plastic scoring tool exploded into dozens of sharpish orange projectiles. The pumpkin survived but, in hindsight, the only way it could have been a worse omen is if a crow had chosen that moment to crash suicidally into our sliding glass door.

We went to a friend’s house for dinner and had pizza and margaritas and beer. Later, we would cap the night with wine and chocolate cheesecake. (If you must trick-or-treat, I’m certain this is one of the better methods.)

And then we donned our costumes and went forth in search of candy. The Lovely and Talented Wife hand-crafted both of the kids’ costumes (as she does every year). We had the best witch and pumpkin on the block.

There’s a good reason I call her lovely AND talented.

While out excitedly encouraging our children to take candy from strangers, we came across a very large extended family walking down the street with at least a dozen children leading the way. The parents strolled down the street pulling a wagon containing one extra-large cooler. The kids would run from house to house, stripping the place bare of candy, while the adults chatted and laughed and drank. It was as if Santa had hitched a horde of locusts to his sleigh and filled his sack with whiskey and beer.

The Boy ran out of steam on the way back to the house so I carried him on my shoulders until he complained that his leg itched. He tried valiantly to scratch but, being the Tyrannosaurus rex of pumpkins, he couldn’t reach his own legs.

T-Rex + Pumpkin = Pumpkinsaurus rex (actual size)

Seeing his distress I told him to hitch up and I knelt down to scratch his leg for him. “Here?” Scratch, scratch, scratch. “Here?” Helpfully, he gyrated his leg and torso to maneuver the spot that needed scratching under my fingers. And then the cold sobering light of passing headlights flashed on us and I realized what we must have looked like. The rest of our group had continued on without us.

So, there we were, alone, the boy hiking up his costume and maneuvering so I could scratch him under his pumpkin.

A 911 call flashed into my head:

Concerned citizen: Help! I just saw a man molesting a pumpkin!
911: Sir, we don’t handle crimes against vegetables, not even on Halloween.

“Son, it’ll have to wait.” We ran to catch up with our group.

You’ll be happy to know that I managed to evade local law enforcement.

(And yes, I know that pumpkins are technically, botanically, fruits—but I’m not a botanist.)