miserylovescompany’s blog

It was finally  time to throw out our pumpkin, proud of its design though I am.
This only occurs to me as I'm leaving the house, so I'm walking my bike to the
curb with one hand, leaving only one hand for the pumpkin. The pumpkin USED to
have a nice handle on it, namely the stem, but since we cut it open thats no
good anymore.  Fortunately the mouth that has been carved into it runs a close
second for convenience.

Unfortunately I'd forgotten that after sitting outside in the rain the damned
think was full of water.  And since it had been outside for over a week it
was, in fact, full of nasty, rancid pumpkin water, which of course splashed
all over my shirt and pants.

Well, thats OK, I probably smell pretty bad anyway, or I will after biking up
Route 1.  So I walk the bike and the pumpkin diagonally across the lawn heading
towards the spot where the retaining wall is lowest and egress is easiest.  The
trash can is already out, and its about halfway along the wall, so the easiest
way to place the pumpkin (now dry inside!) into the trash can is with a nice
easy underhanded toss.

It's a good throw, nothing but net as it were.  Except the trash can is light,
the pumpkin is heavy, and it still has a bunch of momentum in a street-ward
direction, so over goes the trash can, spilling kitchen waste only slightly
less smelly then the pumpkin all over the street.  And since it's on top of
all of this lovely trash, the pumpkin itself comes out too.

I live at the top of a hill?  Well as you might expect if
you release a round-ish object (such as a rotten pumpkin) onto a slope (such
as a hill) the object will go tumbling merrily downward to gravities' happy
delight.

Which our pumpkin did, bumping and rolling along, until it fetched up against
a conveniently immovable object.  This was of course the bumper of my neighbor Carollyns
shiny Honda, and the velocity of the impact was such that the force involved
significantly over-matched the pumpkins' structural integrity, causing it to
energetically disassemble and shower her car car with rotten, smelly pumpkin
fragments.

At this point Carollyn walks out of her house just in time to see the carnage.
To her credit she noticed my obvious discomfort and in fine Southern style
smiled and spoke of other things such as the nice weather, and did I get
veterans day off? as I cleaned the mess as best I could.

I may have to have her and her boyfriend over for drinks sometime soon!