The Cat Makes 5

My mother grew these HUGE pumpkins this year in her garden. When I say huge, I am talking possible state fair huge. I am really quite proud of her, because I have tried to grow pumpkins, and it is almost impossible .... they are persnickity little buggers that require lots of love ... love I'm not willing to offer produce. Mom lives in Utah, and managed to talk my Uncle (who lives in Colorado Springs and was visiting Utah) to transport one of the enormous pumpkins to our house on his trip back to Colorado (he goes through our town in CO). SO, the pumpkin arrives sometime end of September. Jon and I managed to get it heaved onto the front porch and sitting on a sort of table thing that now has 4 legs that are sort of bowing beneath the enormous pumpkin weight, but I reasoned if the pumpkin was off the ground, it would not rot (at least as fast). Jon was later diagnosed with a hernia (not kidding). SO, the pumpkin received ooohs and aaahs over the Halloween holiday, no we did not atttempt to carve it, it's three times the size of my 20 month-old and in my opinion I think there is something sacreligious about breaking out power tools to carve a pumpkin. SO, it's now November 13. The pumpkin remains, as does Jon's hernia, and I'm not real sure how we are going to dispose of the thing. My sister, Maranda, recently suggested that I offer all three of my boys a hammer and tell them to dispose of said pumpkin and "leave no trace behind". Uh.huh. I told her the following:

"Give them a hammer? Have you met my children? Wait, don't you have three of your own? Can you IMAGINE? Let me play this out for you ... I give the three of them a hammer. It would begin as a pumpkin massacre ... then Drew would wack the damned thing so hard the guts would inevitably bounce onto Bradyn, who would then call Drew a "fag" or "homo" or "stupid head" and then he would try his level best to wack drew, hammer in hand, in the "nards". Caden would be watching the whole thing go down and think that hitting must be okay since he would then be witnessing Drew fall into complete hysterics, yell something about pimps, ho's, and how he's in a gang and is going to get his ak47 and annialate (sp) his brother Bradyn. Of course, since we don't have ak47 assault rifles handy at the house, he would instead try to retaliate and hit Bradyn in the aforementioned "nards" as well. Jon would try to step in, but would be laughing to hard that they were attacking each other's nards to be much of a parental guidance to anyone. I would be screaming about giving the hammers back to me and how they were grounded for the rest of their natural lives. Caden ... well, Caden would be somewhere in the middle of the half beaten pumpkin, which I am sure is rotten as hell at this point, eating it by the mushy handful saying, "ka-ka". No, no. I think pumpkin disposal will involve Jon's work truck, possibly some day laborers, and an illegal drop off late in the night in some unsuspecting local farmers field. After all, it came from the land, back to the land. Dust to dust, right? "
Exactly how long can a giant pumpkin last before it starts to rot and smell. It seems fine now ... is it wierd to glue cotton balls on it for a beard and put a Santa hat on top of it? I think it could work for winter decor? Who needs Santa when you have a giant pumpkin to spread holiday cheer?