Regular Life

Note: New banner up for November. If you still see the bird, then force a browser refresh.

Play before bedtime on Halloween.
(click to make that dinosaur bigger)

We didn’t ask for much. We just wanted to pick out what we needed, pay for it, and go home. The night before Halloween, my wife needed to buy 21 small pumpkins and the materials for kids to decorate them. Sounded simple enough.

We split a chicken fajita quesadilla at a local Mexican place and then head out to the store. Our son is safely tucked away at my in-laws’ house.

The first store has no small pumpkins, but we find the other required supplies. The next store has no pumpkins, either. Things are not looking good. Shannon starts cursing herself for waiting until the night before. I assure her we will not sleep until she has her coveted orange gourds, but refrain from smiling ear-to-ear and saying it is actually kind of fun for me.

At a slightly upscale grocery store, I run inside and ask the first employee I see, who throws me off a bit when she points and says, “Back in the prawduce section.” I translate that to mean “produce” and quickly make my way there.

I hit the mother lode, a cursory count revealing at least 24. As I head back up front to get a cart and Shannon, a man rearranging tomatoes asks, “Didn’t find the pumpkin you wanted?”

I keep walking as I call over my shoulder, “Well, I need 21. Gonna need a cart.”

We get out of there with 15 pumpkins that don’t have any gashes and aren’t unacceptably misshapen, but at this point stems have become optional. Shannon’s cursing has not.

Striking out at the next store, we continue to another. We manage to scrounge up four pumpkins. When we ask the checkout lady if she knows of a place that has more, she says she doesn’t and that we owe her a dollar for the four. They were marked $1.99 each.

My wife starts stammering out the real price, but the lady interrupts and says, “I’m just so sorry we didn’t have as many as you needed.”

I stop at the Walgreen’s next door just in case they happen to have any. I come back out to the car and tell Shannon, “He said a lady just bought the last three.”

“What?!!! No way!”

“No, just kidding. He said they don’t sell them.”

Next stop: the Wal-Mart nearest our house. No pumpkins. We get out of Wal-Mart at 9:40, and the Super Target about 15 minutes down the road closes at 10 p.m. As I pull out of the parking lot, Shannon calls one of her assistant organizers, who graciously stops what she’s doing and checks the mom’s group web site for any RSVP changes. Turns out only 19 children will need pumpkins.

Pumpkin Quest 2007 comes to an abrupt halt, and we stop at Sonic — Cherry Limeade for the lady, Oreo Blast for me. Sweet reward for the seekers of the gourd.

And, I would be absolutely remiss if I didn’t include at least one photo featuring these pumpkins (click to find the bunny).

Comments RSS