So, Happy Meal grows a pumpkin every summer. Last year he wanted pumpkin pie, and this year he wanted to carve a jack-o-lantern.
About the time the pumpkin was ripe, the Spouse and I launched a massive tidy-the-yard campaign. We trimmed and raked and spread two dump-truck loads of bark. While we worked, Happy Meal picked his pumpkin, scooped out the guts, drew on a design and had the Spouse cut it out.
Our yard looked lovely, so naturally, we thought, "Let's put that pumpkin in the flower bed and let it ROT!" So we did, and it did.
Here is the pumpkin, beginning to look a little haggard:
Time went on and I forgot the pumpkin. Then this week I was driving up to our house...
See the nice landscaping? Then I noticed - oooooh -
Sick! Hmm. The UPS guy was supposed to pick up a box from my porch this week and he did not. I had to drive to the UPS Store. I now know why. Overcome with revulsion and disgust, he retreated to the safety of his brown truck and fled, hair standing on end, his tongue shriveling with the metallic taste of fear.
I noticed something similar at another house, last fall. On our regular route to school is a yellow cottage, and on an outside window ledge the owner set a few small pumpkins. One of the pumpkins started to mold and rot, and the people just left it there. By mid-January, the gourd had become a pile of goop on the ledge, and a brown, slimy streak dripped down the siding below, all the way to the ground.
That makes me feel better.
