Pumpkin picking is foreign to me. I’m Australian, so Thanksgiving, Halloween and generally making a big deal about the Fall season (or Autumn as we call it) weren’t part of my childhood. That all changed after I married an American and had a couple of kids. Pumpkin picking has since become an unlikely family tradition. Don’t ask me why. To be honest, I hardly see the fun in marching through a muddy field peppered with boulder sized pumpkins—some rotting away with flies buzzing overhead, while others just sit there intimidating you with their size, like a bunch of lazy, orange sumo wrestlers. Lugging these things around isn’t fun, its unpaid manual labor. But this event isn’t about my pleasure, it’s about the pleasure my kids derive from watching their dad almost throw his back out so they can enjoy their precious fucking pumpkins. Anyway, a few weeks ago we called the pumpkin farm in advance to confirm that they were open the coming Sunday. They assured us they were. We then went to the usual trouble of renting a car and driving out to the boonies of Long Island for a “fun” day of family bonding. After a hellish drive in which my wife realized she was driving in the wrong direction a mere 10 minutes into the journey, and the kids incessantly squabbling over who gets to hold the Dora The Explorer book, we finally arrived. Entering the farm’s makeshift car park my wife and I exclaimed in unison, “What the fuck!” There wasn’t a soul in sight and the pumpkin field had been fenced off. They were closed. We looked at each other with “Now what?” expressions plastered across our dumbfounded faces. That’s when I noticed one of the farm’s sheds had been left open. It was filled with bins brimming with freshly picked pumpkins. I looked back at my kids’ disappointed little faces and thought “I’ll be damned if we drove all this way and aren’t leaving with some bloody pumpkins.” Operation Pumpkin Snatch was underway. “C’mon Ella. It’s time to get some pumpkins” I announced. I instructed my wife to park the car immediately in front of the shed and keep the motor running. Suddenly a pleasant day of pumpkin picking had turned into a bank heist. I grabbed Ella (my son, Judah, had already fallen asleep) and we both rushed into the open shed. “Grab whatever you can and run back to the car” I ordered. I did the same. Before long we’d filled the car floor with seven pumpkins—a royal bounty by any family’s standards. I buckled Ella up, and raced back to the passenger seat as my wife sped off before I could close the car door. I looked back and noticed Ella smiling, holding her favorite pumpkin in her lap. I, in turn, smiled seeing her smile. Operation Pumpkin Snatch was a great success.
