Tuesday November 1, 2005
	The day after Halloween.
	"There it is," she says.  She just woke up and I'm over 'cause she wants me to help her get rid of her $41 jack-o-lantern. "Uh huh," I say then unscrewing the cap from atop the Budweiser bottle. "How ya doing, baby?" she says then putting her lips on mine. Secretly and to myself I'm thinking:  How am I doing?  If you really wanted to know you wouldn't be walking away from me at the same time you asked: How ya doing baby?  You'd be facing me and waiting for my response and then when I was done telling you how I was doing you'd say something deep and touching and inspirational and female and I'd feel better immediately and after a moment of not talking we'd look into one another's eyes and when we're done looking into one another's eyes we'd make some barely audible moaning sounds at which point we'd hump one other on the Berber throw carpet between your Barry White vinyl record collection and the bean bag chair you inherited from your late grandmother.    I'm no longer thinking secretly and to myself so I say:   "I don't think I've ever seen a $41 pumpkin." "It was an award winner," she says, "The contest was sponsored by Miracle-Gro." "Isn't that something?" I say then finishing off the Budweiser. It isn't something.  Why can't good old God sized run of the mill pumpkins be big enough for Americans?  Three fifty pound bags of fertilizer and enough water to satisfy 100 thirsty people in Zimbabwe for a month and we end up with a prize pumpkin that reminds me of John Merrick. "They delivered it in a pickup truck," she says.  "It's 125 pounds."  (56.25 kg)   She is pulling on her brassiere while walking past me and toward the kitchen when she says: "I'd like you to put it in your car so we can dump it somewhere, honey." Outwardly I'm smiling but to myself I'm thinking: Huh?  What the f-ck am I doing here?  Okay, sure, I told you I'd come pick up your pumpkin.  The pumpkin you got at an auction.  The pumpkin you had to have.   Sure, I'll throw it in the trunk with the ulterior motive that maybe afterwards we'd hump one other in the back seat of my vintage Cadillac behind the Waffle House (with the smell of eggs and bacon and waffles in the air).  But that was, before. Before I knew it was a 125 pound pumpkin. Before I knew you expected me to do all the lifting and driving.  I'm just a writer.  I sit on my skinny ass looking at an archaic flickering CRT for hours on end.  The heaviest thing I've ever had to carry was the 94 pound intoxicated body of the girl I took to the Senior prom last year.  What do I know about dumping a 125 pound pumpkin?  Jeez...   If I owned a laptop computer, I'd be sitting in a Starbucks reading Dave Winer or Amy Bellinger or Robert Scoble or listening to Madge Weinstein or Adam or the Bluggcast (Doctoe has a pretty voice) or noisydaughter.com or watching Echo perform in Convulsion Expulsion but instead I'm standing here with an empty beer bottle wondering how I'm gonna get the elephantkin into my car.           "C'mon Norm," she says then pointing to the pumpkin,  "Let's go." I am unscrewing the cap off another Budweiser when I say: "Open the trunk, honey."  Norm's Note:  As told to me:  Her grandmother (Bessie) once had a German Schnauzer (Bandit).  Bandit had vision troubles and was old and arthritic and one day Bandit simply disappeared.  It was assumed the dog got out and went missing.  When the grandmother died relatives picked the house clean even tearing the wallpaper from the walls.  When the beanbag chair was moved the flattened leather like corpse of Bandit was found.  She was told that her uncle had used Bandit's body as a drivers side floor mat for his 1976 AMC Pacer.   When I finished my beer I came up with a fantastic idea:  I wrapped a blanket around the pumpkin and then shoved it inside a Salvation Army dropbox.  To the Army employee standing near the box I said, "Blankets." "God bless," he said.   We didn't make love behind the Waffle House.  PREVIOUS   HOME   NEXT