Toy Story

Does anybody else besides myself find this pumpkin just a little bit disturbing? I mean, I don't want it to just be me that gets the squiggens over the sight of its evil leer and heavy-lidded menace. I feel silly whenever I point it out to friends, neighbors, landlord, pizza man, Jehovahs Witnesses, and they don't appear to react with the same degree of unsettling anxiety that I experience. It reminds me of the kinds of boogins that invaded my dreams as a child. Like the Vermicious Knids. Well no, this thing isn't anywhere near Vermicious Knid terrority, and those scare the ever-lovin' piss outta me on their own. But the Knids are a whole 'nuther story. This is the story about the pumpkin.

Joe, always the strong, sensitive one of the two of us, tells me that I am out of my gourd and that there is no evil spirit dwelling within the pumpkin. That no, it doesn't hover over me while I sleep, that it's not peering over the shower curtain while I am busy scrubbing soap out of my eyes while singing loudly to "Joey" by Concrete Blonde - but the more this damned thing sat on our piano the more I was convinced that it was either him or me, one of us would have to leave. After careful consideration Joe decided that he'd rather part with the pumpkin and came up with the idea of trying to give him away to a professional wrestler. He figured what better home to go to. And we had tickets to the WCW World War 3 1996 Pay-Per-View in Norfolk that week, too. Front row, even. O, Fortuna!

My boyfriend, btw, is a wrasslin' freakazoid. Me? Well... its intrinsic humor is not lost on me but I am hardly a follower (or, ah, at least not like I was as a kid in the 80's ::cough cough::). But one thing we do have in common is our habit of trying to foist off completely random, unrelated objects to entertainers and celebrities. We always used to stand front row at concerts and hand the musicians Moist Towelettes, then make note of their reaction and subsequent usage (still can't grind out the mental image of David Yow from The Jesus Lizard cleaning his penis with the one I gave him). We figured, pumpkin + wrestling = pretty damn Dada, so channeling the spirit of Tristan Tzara we snuck our evil lil' pun'kin through Scope security, which I suppose they figure if signs are okay, why not pumpkins. So no hassles so far.

Oh, and you can actually see us in the front row of this pay-per-view. With the exception of a few front aisle shots when Roddy Piper would walk past us, most of the show was shot from behind our seats so it's mostly the back of our noggins, but we are sitting towards the far right of the screen, dead front row, our matching dark curly heads next to each other, and our pumpkin raised aloft every so often. Just biding our time. And we would know it when it comes.

And then the time came. The show ended with a totally riotous 60-man "battle royale" with, as the title might already suggest, 60 scantily clad men in one ring beating the snot out of each other until the last man standing in the ring wins. And every time a wrestler was thrown from the ring he had to walk right past us, and Joe would stretch his arm to hold out the evil pumpkin to the losing wrestler as an offer to take. As a consolation prize, perhaps. Either way, we were growing disappointed that each wrestler turned down our sweet gesture. As Loser # 18, 19, 24, 26, 31, 49 passed us over we were seriously beginning to think that maybe this pumpkin truly was cursed. It wasn't going home with anyone? I would be {{gulp}} forever stuck with it?

And then we caught the attention of a wrestler who was just tossed from the ring by The Giant (nowadays known as The Big Show). I can't remember which wrestler it was -- Joe, help me out here -- but he looked pretty not-pleased to be taking that Walk O' Shame past the cretins in the pit (i.e. us). When Joe held out the pumpkin the guy angrily slapped the bottom of Joe's hand upward, causing the pumpkin to go catapulting backwards behind us, far, far back into the audience.

Ach! We had failed in our mission. But at least the pumpkin was ever to be seen again. Or so we thought. Not long afterwards I got a tap on my shoulder. It was a fan sitting behind me, and he handed me back the pumpkin. Apparently after the wrestler slapped the pumpkin far back into the stadium the fans picked it up and crowd-surfed the little fella back down to the front row to return it to us. Ain't that a kick in the head.

Or OR! It came back by... other means. I'm still not entirely ruling out the supernatural here. I mean, look at those eyes! By the pricking of my fucking thumbs, boy-o!! It will always find me. It always, always knows. Damn its eyes. Damn its toothy grin. Wait... pumpkins don't have teeth. PUMPKINS DON'T HAVE TEETH!

So obviously we took Evil Pumpkin back home and set him in his rightfully earned spot on the piano once again. We have never attempted to get rid of him again, and I think at this point I am fine with it. Whatever his intentions, he's made it clear that he won't be parted from us. I have grown to accept his presence. But I still catch him... looking at me from time to time. {{raising one eyebrow}}

Now if I can just find a way to get rid of Joe's Spiderman pillow that looks just like a Vermicious Knid.