Last year, inspired by the many gruesome and grotesque pumpkin pictures being emailed over and over on the web, Jim decided that we needed to adorn the front of our house with the sickest, most gory pumpkin display the world has ever known. Small children were afraid to trick or treat at our house last year. Limited to only two pumpkins due to the late approval he got from yours truly, Jim created a scene on our front steps that has scarred scores of kids in this neighborhood. One of the gory gourds had his eyes crossed in x’s, mouth wide open, spewing pumpkin seed vomit all over himself and our front steps. The other equally gruesome gourd held with invisible hands a small handgun to his head on one side, and the other side showed the effect of the pumpkin suicide, with pumpkin brain spilling out of the side of the pumpkin head. Forget the trauma to the neighborhood kids – I may need therapy for life after seeing that one.
This year, our house is for sale. It’s bad enough that we live next door to a cemetery. Getting people to get out of their cars, in the dark, this close to Halloween, is going to be challenging enough with the possibility of ghoulies and ghosties drifting over from the cemetery. But to have someone want to come up to our door, explore our house, AND place an offer on the place after they witness the pumpkin massacre on the front steps seemed too much. I put the kibosh on pumpkin death row this year. I did not want people to walk away from viewing our house wondering what kind of satanic rituals were taking place INSIDE if there was such a disturbed scene outside.
I want our house to look friendly, warm, and inviting. We are decorated for Halloween, and we do have two pumpkins, one painted by Granuaile, the other by Eilis. I figure we are already driving away some orthodox Christian groups who oppose Halloween because of it’s satanic overtones and maybe a few other religions who don’t believe in Halloween. Why should we now risk driving away the people who LIKE Halloween by scaring the bejesus out of them with Nightmare on Pumpkin Street.
Jim was very disappointed. He even took his appeal to the website www.wishuponahero.com – hoping that some benevolent soul would turn up at our house, bizarre pumpkins in hand, and plant them around our yard. I think all he got out of that was, “The wife is right”.
So when you drive by our house this Halloween, look for the sweetly painted pumpkins my little girls did to help make our house festive and welcoming. And then look in the window to see if you see Jim, standing there pouting.