Fall is my favorite time of year for many reasons... the crunch of leaves under your feet, a warm cozy fire in the fireplace, I can finally stop wearing short sleeves and get back into my chunky warm sweaters again. Oh and tights! Don’t forget the tights!
Fall also houses two of my most favorite holidays ― Halloween and Thanksgiving. I love them both for many reasons because what other days can you justify eating endless amounts of candy and endless amounts of carbohydrates? (I can easily do that on many days throughout the year but on these two days it is perfectly acceptable.)
I love my Halloween scary. Spooky. Traditional. I do not enjoy cutesy scarecrows having a conversation or whimsical witches with feathers in their hats. If you like that, that’s totally great, you have your cat dressed like candy corn/adorable ghosts Halloween and I’ll have my Michael Myers, black crows, graveyard blood Halloween. We can totally still be friends!
And my pumpkins. I love my pumpkins. My jack-o-lanterns. My pumpkin seeds and my pumpkin pie. I love pumpkins so much I was one for Halloween one year.
Now I have something important to say. In case you haven’t noticed, pumpkins are being ruined. That is because people are pumpkin spicing the shit out of anything and everything they can get their hands on.
Let me start off by stating that as I write this it’s the last week of August into the first week of September; in my mind any normal human being would still be expecting to smell the last remaining days of summertime... hamburgers and hot dogs grilling on the barbecue, suntan lotion, salty beach air.
“In case you haven’t noticed, pumpkins are being ruined. That is because people are pumpkin spicing the shit out of anything and everything they can get their hands on.”
Come September maybe you want to smell back to school; number two pencils perhaps? Pink erasers? Smelly pre-teen children? (I have boys. Two of them.)
But no.
For the last few weeks we have been forced to smell what my favorite season supposedly smells like in August. And it stinks.
And every year it seems to get stinkier and stinkier. And it tastes even worse.
I will totally and openly admit, I used to so look forward to the famous pumpkin flavored latte that’s out there. It was delicious! But now, now there is a miserable countdown to that lattes arrival and I want nothing to do with that nonsense.
We are pumpkin spicing the shit out of everything. Coffee, tea, ice cream, waffles, Oreo’s, hummus (gross) and yogurt, which I’m guessing prideful yogurt is not happy about. And the abundance of stinky candles and air fresheners is both under and overwhelming. Blech.
We need to leave pumpkins alone. Because you know what? Pumpkins actually stink. Smell those slimy, goopy guts as you carve yours this Halloween. And if you have the time and patience to make a pie for Thanksgiving out of an actual pumpkin God bless you and I’d love to shake your hand ― for me it’s Libby’s, Libby’s, Libby’s all the way.
Is this a big deal? No. Should I get this worked up over the pumpkin spicing of America? Probably not.
But come on, give pumpkins back what little dignity they had. Let them lay on a vine in a patch. Let them get carved and be spooky. Let them rot on your front porch until the mouths cave in and they look like they forgot to put their dentures in. And let them stink and get furry with mold as they do so.
I’m keeping my sickeningly sweet pumpkin where it belongs, in a pie ― in November.
Lori’s website, Drawn to the 80s, is where her 5 year old drew the hit songs of the 1980’s.
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