halloween

Editor’s Note: Please welcome our newest contributor: ES reader, DC resident, and noted pumpkin expert Miss K.

We were walking to my lovely Northeast DC rowhouse when we first saw the victim.  It was not a pretty scene.  The pumpkin’s guts were trailing across the sidewalk, leading to the broken corpse.  My goddaughter Nana stopped, gasped, and said, “Oh no!  Pumpkin broken.”  I explained to her that it was okay, that Halloween was over anyway.  Either this convinced her, or her two-year-old goldfish-esque attention span kicked in.  One way or another, we were able to keep walking.  I thought the matter had been settled.  I was wrong.

The pumpkin remained for several weeks, cycling through various stages of decay.  And each time we passed the pumpkin, Nana would repeat her original comment, “Oh no.  Pumpkin broken.”  It became something of a local landmark for us, and by the time it finally disappeared, both she and I mourned its passing.

I may be somewhat to blame for Nana’s pumpkin obsession.  I love pumpkins, probably more than most.  But not because you can carve them, or in the case of the ones that come in the mixed bag of candy corn, rot your teeth with them.  No, I love to eat pumpkins.  To me, why leave a perfectly good squash just sitting out on the porch (or sidewalk) to rot?  My husband and I took Nana and her sister Bitty to a pumpkin patch this year.  We shook our groove thang to the bluegrass band, played in the kiddie land and had one unfortunate accident which I believe was a result of deathly fear of the port-o-potty.  But really, can you blame her?  We departed in exhaustion with four lovely little pumpkins.  The twins took theirs home and I began plotting the tasty demise of ours…