Confession of an Exploding Pumpkin

Before I start, I need to be clear. I wasn’t a troubled youth. I didn’t go around terrorizing the neighborhood or get expelled from school. However, there was this one Halloween…

Rummaging through my room one year (no doubt being forced to clean it), I found a bag of unused fireworks. Nothing flashy or sparkly. No, just explosive. To me it was like Christmas came early. So I did what any other red-blooded teenage American boy would do on Halloween with a newly discover bag of firecrackers.

I blew up pumpkins.

Now don’t get ahead of yourself and start judging. I’d say a teenage boy who didn’t come to that conclusion is troubled. Although I did have some inner struggles I needed to get over.

To be honest, I have no moral dilemmas in destroying already gutted and carved pumpkins. It’s not like they were food or anything. On the other hand, I do have an issue with getting caught doing something that could be construed with being bad. I hated getting in trouble. My solution?

I blew up my own pumpkins.

And was it glorious. Those mocking evil grins temporarily illuminated before blasting in a million pieces over the porch and lawn. It was teen nirvana, I swear. The problem with teen nirvana is that you seldom see the reckoning looming on the horizon.

I avoided problems with neighbors and the police by subjecting my own pumpkins. That didn’t exempt me from my parent’s wrath. Being a holiday, my punishment was light. My remaining fireworks were confiscated, and I had to clean up all of the pumpkin shrapnel. Only until it was all cleaned would I be allowed to trick-or-treating.

This month has been kind of like an exploding pumpkin. Admittedly, almost everything going on is a direct result of something I did, like having kids (that’s an explosion that’ll last for eighteen plus years). And even though this month’s explosion isn’t all glorious to behold, it’s still something I’m going to have to clean up.

For a while I’ll picking up those figurative pumpkin pieces. I have to. But once I do, I’ll be free to do what I want. So never fear dear readers. Your pumpkins are safe for the moment. Unless that bag in the corner is what I think it is…