It Doesn’t Owe Me Anything

About two weeks ago I was going into Superstore when I noticed bins and bins of pumpkins. It was the day after Halloween and someone in the Superstore family had screwed up big time with the pumpkin order. I think it was that smarmy Galen Weston. This fiasco should take him down a peg or two. Can you take a billionaire down a peg or two or do they just hire someone to take the blame for them?

I was chuckling to myself when I noticed that they were on sale. Not only were they on sale, but they were on sale for 19 cents! Not 19 cents a pound, but just 19 cents! Well, what could I do except give them the once over and pick the most perfect pumpkin of the batch. It was roundish and sort of flat on the top and bottom with a stem coming out of the top at a rakish angle. Small indentations ran from top to bottom about an inch and a half apart all around the circumference. Everyone knows what a pumpkin looks like, but this was the most perfect one that I think I have ever seen.

I put it in my cart and went into the store with a light step and a song in my heart. It didn’t even bother me when I got behind the morons at the self checkout. Okay, that always bothers me. These idiots more than likely wear Velcro shoes because they never mastered the whole lace and bow thing. Why in the name of all that is holy would they think they could figure out the code of asparagus? They more than likely don’t even know how to spell asparagus. I put the pumpkin on the scanner and punched the code. Sure enough 19 cents! Life is pretty good sometimes.

On the way home I was thinking about what I would do with the pumpkin. Hell, even if I just take it out and smash it on the road it won’t owe me anything. I could carve it into any number of things. I am a not too shabby carver if I do say so myself. No, I think that I will use this to eat. I will cut it up, boil it, and freeze it to make pumpkin filling to use at Christmas time when the family is all at the table. I will then regale them with the story of this 19 cent pumpkin and the idiots at the checkout. I think that I will even use some of it tonight for dinner instead of potatoes. The kids think that I don’t have an adventurous palate! I just prefer a dish that has had all of the nutrients boiled out of it and the only spices that you really need are salt and pepper. I guess that is the English ancestry coming out. Maybe I will carve it and then cook it. Oh, and the seeds. I will clean out the insides and separate the seeds, lightly oil them, sprinkle a little salt, and roast them.Before you know it I will have about two bucks worth of toasted pumpkin seeds.

Well, it has been about two weeks and I just noticed the pumpkin sitting on the sideboard waiting to have something, anything done to it. I will get on it first thing tomorrow. I don’t think I will carve it, and if it has developed mold, I am pretty sure that Louise won’t let me cook it. I think we have a can of pumpkin pie filling downstairs anyways, and the canned stuff is already spiced.

You know I just might go out and smash it on the street; after all, it doesn’t owe me anything. It will compost nicely too.