It’s October. I wish I had better news for you, but… I don’t. It’s October and it’s almost Halloween and I have killed my pumpkin plant.

If you know me, you are now thinking, why in the hell did you think you could grow a pumpkin?

Well, let me tell you: I didn’t.

The pumpkin plant sprouted spontaneously from the ground with no help from me, save for my laziness last year as the kids and I were gutting our lovely pumpkins in the front yard and chucking the guts into the flower bed (okay yeah yeah, flower bed is too strong a phrase for the shit going on in my front yard). It started small and vine-y and my husband did not believe me when I shouted, “It’s a pumpkin vine! It’s going to be a pumpkin!” But then it got longer and bigger and started to flower and there was no denying: We were going to have our very own pumpkins this year.

Now, again… if you know me well, you know how delusional this was for me to think. After all, I’ve killed the following plants in the last couple of years:

1. An Aloe plant I was told was very hearty and healthy and nearly impossible to kill
2. More than one cactus – that’s right folks, living with me is harsher than living in a fucking desert
3. Two hanging plants that hung on and really gave a good fight all summer but are now dead
4. Various amounts of hearty mums
5. Two potted plants that honestly, I don’t even know the names of. They have, like, really dark green slippery looking leaves but no flowers? I don’t know, but they’re dead, too.

 

And now, the pumpkin plant.

So I guess it’s off to the market for me to buy stupid pumpkins some other person was able to successfully grow without killing because they’re better caretakers than a sandy, hot, emotionless void. Like they’re so special or something.