Pumpkins are Gross!

Fall is here, and Halloween is just a few days away.  One of the things that always comes to mind about this time of year, aside from the autumn colored M&Ms and candy corn, is pumpkins.  And not just those oddly shapen, roundish, orangish gourds...the ones with smiley faces or weird, spooky images carved into them.

Apparently, I have been deprived as a child, as I have never carved a pumpkin in all my life.  It might have to do more with the fact that my mom is a smart woman who knows it isn't a good idea to let me play with sharp objects, than an intentional withholding of a rite of passage.  We did get pumpkins, but we drew smiley faces on them with Sharpie markers instead of cutting into them.  A few years ago I bought an orange, crystal looking, plastic plug-in pumpkin at an after Halloween sale that has a multicolored light inside of it.  I used to plug it in and sit in near my window and watch as the color of the smiling face slowly faded from pink to blue to purple.  Around Thanksgiving I would box it up and pull out my Christmas decorations (I have a plug-in tree with sparkling white lights on it).  Lately though, seasonal decorating has not been big on my to-do list...please don't tell HGTV!

A few days ago, a pumpkin appeared on my front porch with the request that I carve it for a party my church was planning for Sunday.  Had anyone bothered to ask me, I would have kindly volunteered for another project.  I was behind in school, swamped with work (all three jobs!), and generally exhausted; and again, I had never carved a pumpkin before.  So there it sat, mocking my ignorance and inexperience until Friday afternoon.  I had come to the decision that, if little children can do this and produce cute little pumpkin faces, then it couldn't be that hard.  Boy, was I wrong.

I do have to brag by saying that I approached my task with the proper amount of planning.  I had mapped out my face (with a Sharpie), and had purchased what I considered to be the appropriate tools to do the job.  I was now ready to start cutting.  Lesson #1:  Pumpkins are hard!  It took quite a few minutes to get the knife through the top of the pumpkin.  I had not expected this kind of resistance, apparently no one had thought to inform the pumpkin that resistance was futile.  Once I got the knife all the way through, I had to wrestle with the blade to get it to go in a roundabout circle.  I had already worked up a sweat by the time I finally managed to pry the top off. Which is when I learned Lesson #2:  Pumpkins DO NOT smell like pumpkin bread or pumpkin pie or even spiced pumpkin frappuccinos.  Oh no, not in the least.  Pumpkins smell like vomit!  Now I was really not having any fun.  Once I got the top off, I proceeded to scoop out the insides.  Lesson #3:  pumpkin insides look and feel like vomit!  As I kept putting my hand through the top whole and scooping out seeds and various other vileness, I had to fight back the urge to add the the overall vomitty affect.  The insides of a pumpkin, aside from smelling and looking like vomit, are also very sticky and messy.  That was Lesson #4.  After just a few scoops, I had stringy, chunky pumpkin barf all over my jeans, running down my arm, and somehow, a little bit got in my hair.  Where was the fun part in all this again????

If it wasn't for the fact that others were depending on this pumpkin for their decorations, I would have called it right then and there.  Sweaty, nauseous, and looking like I had already been revisited by my lunch, I persevered.  Lesson # 5:  It takes a long, LONG time to completely (or close enough) scoop out the insides of a pumpkin.  Finally, when my arm could scoop no more, I got the last little bit out.  I do have to admit that carving out the eyes, nose, and mouth were much easier without all the vomit inside.

At last I stood up and wiped away as much of the puke that had attached itself to my jeans as I could, and gazed upon my creation.  Not so bad for a first timer, I will admit.  He looked like a happy little pumpkin, and that was my intention.  After almost 2 hours of fighting with both the pumpkin and my gag reflex, I had claimed victory.  I carefully loaded my prize creation into my car and hand-delivered it to the church's fellowship hall.

I still do not understand the allure of carving a pumpkin... I think I'll have to dig out my electric one next year.  Mainly because he doesn't smell like vomit.