When Pumpkins Attack

You know that show called “When Animals Attack”? Sure you do. We’ve all seen those videos where some idiot gets too close to a crocodile and gets his leg bit clean off, or the ones of the idiots taunting the grizzly bear near their campsite before getting mauled to dang-near death. There are some things you just shouldn’t do. I get it; people think that since they’re the “more advanced” species they can out stealth a friggin’ bear. News flash people: regardless of how “advanced” you may be, you still can’t run from a 2 ton grizzly. That sucker’s gonna eat you and not think a thing about it. You quickly learn two lessons from watching about 10 minutes of these types of shows: A) don’t mess with wildlife, and B) acting like an idiot can get you in trouble.

A few posts ago, I wrote about how everyone in the South has a little bit of white trash in them. I also referenced how my husband and I throw our rotten fruit over the back fence “for the birds”. No judgments please. If you had an empty lot behind your house, you’d do it, too. I can’t even begin to describe how enjoyable it can be to have a mini Olympics in your backyard… Your old celery is the javelin event - your rotten oranges the shot-put. Perhaps not the classiest of afternoon activities, but fun nonetheless.

One day a few months ago, my husband finally decided to call my fall pumpkins in. They’d been serving as back patio decoration and managed to stay nice for several months, but now they looked a little over-ripe. I had given him permission to get rid of them since they were starting to smell, but I foolishly thought that since the pumpkins were so large, he would put them in a garbage bag and throw them into the big trash can. If only I had known…

I walked off to put in another load of laundry and heard the door open and close. Soon the hubs was standing in front of me asking if I knew where the hammer was. Here’s how the conversation went:

Hubs – “Hey, do we have a hammer somewhere?”

Me – “Sure, here.”

Hubs – “Be right back. Gotta fix the fence.”

Me – “What happened to the fence?!”

Hubs – “I hit it with a pumpkin.”

Me – “How did you do that?!”

Hubs – “I really underestimated the force I would need to chuck it over the fence.”

I, of course, busted into hysterical laughter. Then I knew I had to see what kind of hammer-needing damage a pumpkin could do to a fence. I walked outside and saw what looked like the gruesome murder of a pumpkin laying across our lawn, and three fence boards that had been jarred from their normal position on the fence line. One board had come darn near clean off. Apparently even a half-rot pumpkin won’t go down without a fight!

Pumpkin Devastation

Pumpkin Guts

Naturally, my husband righted his wrong by reattaching the boards to our fence, and we had a good long laugh. Now, do you think this would deter us from launching fruit over our fence in the future? Take it as a lesson in the negative effects of tomfoolery? Use the “advanced species” part of our brains to realize that was a bad idea? Nope. We just learned that next year, when launching our pumpkins, we’ve got to decrease the distance and increase the force to make sure the pumpkin makes it completely over the fence… with no ill effects or damage to our property…

It’s the South, Y’all!