Piss-your-pants Pumpkin

---

North Americans go nuts for Halloween, weeks beforehand people deck out their yards with all sorts of weird and wacky paraphernalia. I particularly liked one house's decoration which had skeletons in coffins, graves with bones coming out, and ghosts dangling from the windows. They must have spent hundreds of dollars.

We were not as excessive, but did buy some pumpkins. I'd never hollowed out a pumpkin before, it was quite novel really. You start by cutting a hole big enough to fit your hand, making sure you keep the piece cut out. Then you scrape and scoop all the goopy insides out. Once that's done you can get on to drawing the face and then carving it. Mine was terrifying, I almost cried just looking at it, Nicola and Tina's were a bit more "cute" and child-friendly.

Come Halloween night we had a stash of candy for the kids. I'm surprised they even approached the house with my pumpkin out front. It looked like a lot of fun, it’s a shame NZ doesn't embrace it more. I know my brother and sister would agree as they are candy fiends too. I wonder if dentists secretly love Halloween, it must be good for business.

The day after Halloween we returned home from work to find that our pumpkins had rotted all over the porch, I couldn't believe they'd rotted that fast (is rotted even a word?), perhaps a kid had seen my terrifying pumpkin and wee'd himself on it?

By this stage I was working at Skystone Engineering an oil and gas company undertaking a data entry project. It wasn't exactly fun work, but the people were nice and the work environment was good, I spent hours goofing off with Argenis and Brenton, playing foosball and playing practical jokes on Gerson. Perks included free hot lunches, there was an endless drinks fridge (With a tasty treat called Orange Crush), a gym room and people could bring their dogs to work if they wanted! It was strange to be working away and be startled by dogs barking.

Skystone celebrated Halloween at work by having a pot luck lunch and letting people dress up, there were some outrageous costumes. Brenton came as the wrestler Nacho Libre, there were 70’s basketball players, vampires, cross dressers and I think Nancy dressed as Mimi off the Drew Carey Show, she certainly acted like a bitch like her. (Sorry, only Brenton will understand this reference). For my costume I borrowed Scott's Pirates of the Caribbean hammerhead shark outfit. It almost ended in tears though as I tripped on a seat and almost knocked over the table containing the delicious cakes and potluck lunch. Whoever decided that hammerhead sharks should have eyes on the side of their heads must have been a cruel bastard.

---

Comments

[Jill A]

Eyes in the side of ypour head!!
Oh Ryan, that sharks head comment cracked me up...I nearly fell off my chair laughing!!!