Carrie's Halloween Pumpkin...What's Left of It Anyway
Carrie Jung
I am a huge fan of traditional holiday activities, and Halloween is no exception.
And while I don’t have too many decorations to sprinkle around the house for the season, a carved pumpkin will always make an appearance.
Because of random conferences and other friend outages, our gang decided that the annual gourd gutting needed to take place last week…which is exactly what happened.
Soon after the first cut though, I learned that my Trader Joe’s pumpkin (that I meticulously examined and compared to the available inventory the day before) was decidedly sub par, as it was half rotten. Luckily, I didn't let this small detail discourage me and ruin the fun that night. So I continued carving, and even managed to end up with a respectable looking jack o' lantern.
Until we left it outside the next day…
Seems like a pretty harmless thing to do, right? To leave your jack o' lantern outside…Well, it turns out the combination of intense desert sun, an unusually hot October, and the slightly rotten consistency of the pumpkin’s flesh, made for something much less impressive when the next night rolled around.
It's safe to say that I won't be impressing trick-or-treaters with my pumpkin carving craftsmanship this Halloween...but hey, there's always next year, right?