Smashing Pumpkins

Katie brought up many good points. Halloween is probably the best holiday ever stolen from the pagans. My Halloween stories are full of adventure, excitement and suspense that could fill the books.

One year after we had sorted and counted out our ten pound bounty, Katie's father, bearing an afro wig, got the urge to smash pumpkins (perhaps nostalgia). You can assume we were more than willing to participate. Now being an upstanding community member he didn't feel comfortable stealing a pumpkin off a front porch, like we were and had done so many times, so we went looking for pumpkins to buy and then smash in the parking lot of the County Market. Genius! By doing this we were no longer breaking any burglary laws, and I suppose we would clean up all the pumpkin pieces when we were done with the smashing ritual, which is preformed by thousands of citizens every Halloween, to prevent the risk of receiving a littering citation.

Much to our dismay, pumpkins are no longer sold on the night of Halloween. By that time they had been packed up in boxes and shipped to the land of post expiration dates. I guess the stores figure, if you don't have a pumpkin yet, you don't need one two hours before the holiday is over. Not one store had a living pumpkin in their possession. Jerry’s IGA, no. Jewel-Osco, no. Not even the ghetto County Market in Downtown Urbana, which we were hoping they had lazy employees who hadn’t taken down the pumpkin displays.

No pumpkins. Now, this would put a damper on most people’s evening. The whole point of our adventure was to smash pumpkins into oblivion. And even though this event never occurred the process of driving from store to store in our costumes, eating more candy then is good for you, singing along to Queen and the Monster Mash on the radio, and laughing so hard we could swear we would pee our pants, was probably more fun than the actual pumpkin demolishing would ever be.

fuzzy wuzzy was a worm

Long time no blog eh? Well, maybe this will wet your blog whistle. :)

I am about to approach my 25th year on this planet. And how do I know that my birthday is soon approaching? By the tell tale Woolly Worms scattered across the roads! Yes, these lovely furry creatures litter our roads every late summer to celebrate my upcoming birthday!

This fall has seemed to be a heavier worm season than normal by my observations. It has become a hazard (for me at least) to be driving on the road. You can see me dodging and weaving to avoid smashing these guys as they bravely make their way across the highway. I feel so guilty hitting those cute fuzzy worms as they cross.

Nearing killing myself avoiding a worm (and coming very close to a semi truck) got me wondering, ‘where did all these $&#^@ worms come from!!?!!’ I decided to do a little internet research. This is what I found on Wikipedia:

The common moth Pyrrharctia isabella is known by different common names at
its two main life stages. The adult is the Isabella tiger moth and the larva
is called the banded woolly bear. The larvae of many species of Arctiid moths
are called "woolly bears" because of their long, thick, furlike setae. Some species are all black in color. This species is black at both ends with a band of coppery red in
the middle. The adult moth is dull yellow to orange with a robust, furry thorax and
small head. Its wings have sparse black spotting and the proximal segments on its first pair of legs are bright reddish-orange.

The site also goes on to say that after the winter in hibernation, they go on to become moths and eventually get eaten by house cats once they’ve found their way into your apartment. It never even mentioned that they can bite you (learned this one from experience) and that they can poop on you (also learned the hard way)! In a week or so all the birthday party celebrations will be over and the worms will be passed out until spring. If only I could do the same...