Pumpkin Encore

Last night, a week after Halloween, I was told that the church pumpkin patch down the street was giving away the extras that didn't sell for their annual fundraiser. I guess nobody wants to carve Jack-o'-lanterns in November, and they need to get the surplus off the church grounds.

You don't have to ask me twice!

I loaded up. I made two trips. I walked away with 30 pumpkins. That's not a typo. That's thirty.

Thirty pumpkins. And some of them are the huge ones they sell for $35 or even $40 each. Even the mid-sized ones are more expensive than your average grocery store pumpkin. So, the way I figure it, last night I scored somewhere in the neighborhood of $400 worth of free pumpkins.

Actually, splurging on a huge one from that very same pumpkin patch has been on my bucket list since I moved here, I just never had the extra cash lying around by the time Halloween arrived (I usually spent that budget on festive events, costumes, lights, decorations, or just numerous, smaller pumpkins). So, now I finally get to see what it's like to carve an extra large pumpkin. Several of them.

As you would expect, most of the pumpkins leftover were punctured or otherwise damaged, but I still managed to find thirty good ones. I felt like Newman at the end of the Soup Nazi episode, when the Soup Nazi was going out of business, and Newman was frantically running home to get a large pot.

I am not a greedy person, but I am a bit of an opportunist. I don't know if I'll even have time to carve thirty Jack-o'-lanterns before they rot, as I am looking ahead, towards Christmas. But I do know this:

I have a sudden windfall of material for an awesome encore of pumpkin porn to upload in my Facebook album, "Octoberness." It just won't be fashionable in November, but I can live with that! I wish pumpkins were available year-round, so when I get the urge to watch a horror movie and carve pumpkins, I can do it. This won't last all year, but holy crap. Thirty pumpkins.

Happy... um, Halloween again.