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Posted on Tue, Oct. 27, 2009 10:15 PM
Jennifer Brown: Carving a little fear out of Halloween
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We are just a few days from the scariest day of the year.
Yeah, Halloween, but it’s not the zombies and vampires and creepy movies and ghost stories and howling animals and general spookiness that have me cowering under the covers. The part of Halloween that most scares the candy corn out of me happens earlier, before all the goblins hobble out of their hidey holes.
It’s sinister. It’s horrifying. It’s … pumpkin-carving. Otherwise known as the Halloween tradition that turns Hubby into Michelangelo with a squash and a dream.
Maybe it’s a man thing – the same phenomenon as when a man, aged 3 or 93, stands in front of a campfire, mesmerized, and a long list of Things I Could Throw Into That Fire starts scrolling through his head.
Or maybe it’s just the men in this family. My father-in-law is probably cracking his knuckles over a giant pumpkin in heaven at this very moment, exclaiming, “This is gonna be a good one! Stand back, angels. Watch The Pumpkin Master!”
I know this because down here on earth, in the Brown kitchen, his son will be doing exactly the same thing.
It all starts the second retailers put those infernal pattern books out on display.
“We’re behind,” Hubby will fret, grabbing three or four off the shelf. “We’ve got to plan our jack-o-lanterns.”
“It’s July 4th,” I’ll say. “I think we’re OK. And we already have a ton of those at home.”
It always amazes me that a man who claims to be so good at math can’t seem to grasp the following formula:
A book of 15 pumpkin patterns minus the 1 pumpkin pattern you used last year equals you don’t need to buy another pattern book for the next, say … 14 years.
I have a library of winking-eyed patterns, spider-faced patterns, smiley patterns, frowny patterns, Mickey Mouse patterns. I could wallpaper Alaska with pumpkin-carving patterns.
Which means we spend the entire week before Halloween agonizing over which pattern we will choose.
“Do we go with anguished or angry?” Hubby will ask, flipping through pattern book #972.
“How about happy?” I’ll suggest, pointing at an adorable tongue-hanging-out-in-a-smile pumpkin face. “Look how cute he is. And look, the pattern is rated ‘Easy.’ You’ll have no trouble carving this one.”
He scratches his chin and gazes at my jolly little pumpkin. “Hmm, you’re right,” he says. “Angry is the way to go. Check out this one.”
He shows me a pattern of a life-sized, anatomically-accurate skeleton with moving metatarsals. “That’s not cute,” I say. “And it’s rated ‘Better You Than Me.’ ”
“Piece of cake!” he proclaims. “Last year’s was rated ‘If You Pull This Off You’ll Be a Legend’!”
I study the skeleton. It’s ugly. It’s scary. It’s not inviting in the least. At least two-thirds of the pattern is so microscopic, those artists who write The Lord’s Prayer on grains of rice would hold up their hands in surrender. One wrong move, one slip of the knife, and the whole thing will cave in on itself. The estimated time of completion is Halloween 2021.
“Do you remember The Great Witch Fiasco of 1999?” I ask. “Remember? Just as you were finishing up, after nine hours of carving, her nose fell off?”
“So?”
“So, it took seven full bags of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup minis and a king-sized Sugar Daddy to calm you down.”
He considers this, then nods, flipping through the pages some more. “Aha!” he proclaims after a while. He holds up a pattern so hideous I give a horror movie shriek. “It’s only rated ‘Seriously, Dude, We Put This One In Here As a Joke.’ That sounds easy enough.”
I sigh, shrug and give up. I leave him with his pumpkins and his library of impossible carvings and toothpicks and little saws and paring knives and fake blood and strobe lights.
I have other scary things to worry about: Teenaged Trick-or-Treaters.
Jennifer Brown lives in Liberty. Her young adult novel, “Hate List,” was released Sept. 1. Visit her at www.JenniFunny.com.
Posted on Tue, Oct. 27, 2009 10:15 PM
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