"Half Axed"

Mixed media.
John Pumpkin Doe, another victim of the gruesome mutilation ritual known as the "Annual Office Pumpkin Carving Contest."
Note the cruel irony of the cannibalistic baby pumpkins, turning on their elder. Divide and conquer.
Yes, that's a wine bottle opener.
- made in cahoots with WBCPLA

The History of Man's Inhumanity to Pumpkins

It's Fall. Somewhere out there, in some sunny pumpkin patch, there is a cheerful golden orange pumpkin with curved ridges. This tumescent gourd has been expanding over the past season, welling up with the excitement of existence, feeling blessed and special, wondering what life has in store for it.

This pumpkin does not know about trick or treat, hacksaws, candle transplants, or the Annual Office Pumpkin Carving Contest.

Poor, unfortunate pumpkin.

In the next few weeks, in homes and conference rooms all across America, people will gather to decide on the design and mutilation of their chosen pumpkin. You may be wondering (and no doubt, the pumpkin will be wondering most of all) how did it come to this?

Why is it that the sons of men and the seeds of pumpkins have entered into such a bizarre and gruesome pact whereby annually, millions of pumpkins are disfigured and disemboweled while enthusiastic humans cackle and dance around them and paint their carcasses and dress them in little tutus and whatnot?

Here's the deal: In the beginning, it had nothing to do with people. It was between the pumpkins and the trees. The story is shrouded in myth, but goes something like this:

Once upon a time, the Pumpkins of the fields and the Trees of the forests were at war. Like all wars, this one was about territory and resources. The trees, of course, being big towering weedy plants, had it all over the pumpkins. They would send out a sentinel from their roots that would shoot up in the middle of a pumpkin patch and suck away all the light.

The Pumpkins had no defense. They were in retreat. Daily, they saw their territory consumed by the voracious, power hungry trees. Desperately, they crawled away, by slowly, pathetically, growing off in other directions. Viny refugees looking for meager scraps of sun.

Then one dark day, the last pumpkin patch was surrounded. Tall glowering trees on all sides. One thin streak of light coming through to the starving pumpkin patch below. Above, the tallest tree stretched out its branches. Below, the last spot of light glowed orange on a tiny pumkin gourd.

Behold, now, that spot of light become eclipsed by the shadow of a leaf.

The last of the pumpkin plants said their sap-ful goodbyes to each other and waited for the dark to swallow up their days.

As you can imagine, this was all happening very s - l - o - w - l - y. In plant time. So let's cut to the next plot point.

Suddenly, out of nowhere came this human. Fumfum, or Tecumsuh or something. He whistled his way right into the middle of this battle and whacked down some of the trees for no apparent reason. (Well, OK, some longhouse project or something).

Deus ex machina for the pumpkins! A stream of reviving light splashed down on their rejoicing rotund faces.

But the unwitting benefactor didn't seem to notice the gourds. He trod all over them with as much respect as he had for the trees.

The pumpkins, being as shrewd as they were viny, overlooked this faux pas. They saw an opportunity. They elected to send an ambassador to ask for the help of this fellow in their battles against the trees.

Being as they're plants, you can imagine how difficult this communication was. Nevertheless, leveraging their one plant skill - patience - they staked out the human and learned its habits. Then, they made their move.

Trying to make a good impression, the most attractive, biggest pumpkin (this is very dramatic in plant time) rolled off the vine and turned up its "face" in the path of the oncoming human.

The pumpkin was trying to say "Hey, we grow in peace. We don't want to be any trouble, and we really like what you're doing with the trees. Could you do a lot more of that? And, um, if it's not too much trouble, could you just hold back on stepping all over us?"

The human, being narcicisssistic as most are, was immediately struck by how much the gourd resembled his uncle Pum. So he started carving the ambassador to look more like his kin - Pum. Pumkin. And then he chewed on one of the amputated wedges.

Oh, sweet squashy flavor of destiny!

The rest is cruel pumpkin punchline history. The human left with the mutilated ambassador. The rest of the pumpkins spent a long dark night of the soil thinking over the deal.

And then they accepted their rotten fate. They said, OK. Those guys can eat the gourd flesh and do the carving thing, but they have to plant our seeds and keep the weeds out and take those trees DOWN. Pronto!

And that's the deal that has been kept alive to this very day.

Of course, since that time, it was thought best to keep the gourds themselves in the dark about the deal. The guileless new generation gourd is always the last one to know. The secret is kept by the pumpkin leaves and vine.

Perhaps we should call them "pimp-kins." These vines soon realized they didn't have much leverage with humans, who are fickle, and quick to break a deal. So these cellulose sell-outs keep coming up with tastier, bigger, shaplier gourds to tempt the human demographic.

Poor deluded little fattened gourds, so happy and well fed by the vine, pampered and prepared for betrayal!

And here comes October, the month of reckoning, when it's time to pay the piper with the pumpkin.

Moral 1: This is what you get when you invite a superpower to aid you in your local battles.

Moral 2: History is just a series of raw deals (or tasty deals, depending on what side you're on).

A Scary Christian Halloween Greeting

Somehow I don't think Jesus would come up with a parable like this. This was sent to me in one of those mass, forwarded emails. Truly horrifying. Author unknown:

"From one pumpkin to another!!!!!!!
A woman was asked by a coworker, "What is it like to be a Christian?"

The coworker replied, "It is like being a pumpkin." God picks you from the patch, brings you in, and washes all the dirt off of you. Then He cuts off the top and scoops out all the yucky stuff.

He removes the seeds of doubt, hate, and greed. Then He carves you a new smiling face and puts His light inside of you to shine for all the world to see."

This was passed on to me by another pumpkin. Now it's your turn to pass it to other pumpkins. I liked this enough to send it to all the pumpkins in my patch."