The Case of the Missing Pumpkins

I realize that Halloween is over. (Sigh.) And I totally get that it’s November now. (Double sigh.) And I really am done (mostly) posting October-themed pieces. This is something different, I swear.

This is a mystery. And I need YOU to help me solve it.

This weekend when I was packing up all my Halloween decorations, including the haunted bird house that my dad made for me, I remembered another homemade Halloweeny gift he gave me many years ago and the tragic fate which befell it.

Here are the facts.

For my birthday in 2003, my dad gave me the homemade Halloween decoration pictured above. It was a large piece of wood that he carved and painted to look like three jack-o-lanterns and one tombstone. The tombstone was for my cat Gink, who was then and still is now very much alive. (If you’ve read my previous post about Halloween decorating tips, you know that my dad makes homemade, personalized tombstones for every member of the family, as well as several more with made-up names or the names of the guests who attend our annual Halloween party. It’s all in good fun. However, seeing my sweet kitty cat’s name on one was walking a fine line between good fun and not funny at all, and I suggested that maybe in the future he not kill off my beloved pets on my birthday gifts.) ANYWAY, to get back to the point, despite the suggestion of Gink’s demise, I still really loved my gift. For the next five years, I used it to decorate my home during October.

But on October 29, 2008, someone stole it. 😦 I was living in Austin’s Rosedale neighborhood at the time, near 45th Street and Ramsey Avenue. Halloween was also on a Friday that year. Two days before, I carved a pumpkin and put it on my front porch. My yard was already decorated with my dad’s work of art and a couple of my own homemade tombstones and some skulls and such. The next morning when I left for work, my pumpkin was gone, along with most of my decorations, including the one my dad made for me. I found out later that several houses in the neighborhood were hit, and since there were no pumpkins smashed in the street, I assumed the thieves were stealing our things to decorate for their own party.

It hurts to have anything stolen from you, even a pumpkin. But I was especially upset that the thieves took the decoration from my dad. It was a birthday gift and it was homemade and it was absolutely one of a kind. I mean, it had my cat’s name on it, for crying out loud.

The weekend after Halloween I drove around a little bit, mainly near the UT campus and the frat houses I knew of, seeing if I could spot it in a yard somewhere, but I didn’t. I gave up on it, assuming I’d never see it again. And I probably won’t.

But today, as I was packing up my Halloween stuff, I started to wonder what ever happened to that thing. Maybe it got tossed in a dumpster after the party, which would be sad. But maybe somebody recognized what a cool thing it was and decided to keep it. Or maybe they gave it to Goodwill. Who knows?

A little over a year ago, I decided to use my blog to track down the woman whose student ID I found in 1996, and within twenty-four hours, we were Facebook friends. So… I’m trying it again. Friends in the interwebs, help me solve The Case of the Missing Pumpkins. I’ll make the same deal I made when I was searching for Amy Spear. If you give me any information that helps me find my dad’s gift, I’ll bake you some cookies. And they’ll be yummy. And to the person who stole my birthday gift in the first place, if you still have it please give it back. I’d be lying if I said, “no questions asked.” Honestly, I have a LOT of questions. But if you return my decoration to me or at least tell me what happened to it, I promise I won’t turn you over to the police.

If you have any information about the missing pumpkins, please share it in the comments or email me at cariejuettner@gmail.com. If not, consider sharing this blog post or the flyer below on your own blog, Twitter feed, or Facebook page. Maybe, with your help, the pumpkins can find their way home.

Thanks, sleuths! I’ll keep you posted about any updates.

Tomorrow is Halloween

The haunted birdhouse my dad gave me for my birthday. He made it himself.

I recently became a member of Uncommon, a young online community that calls itself “a front porch for the internet.” In creating my Uncommon profile, I was asked to write about some of my favorite things. The first one that came to mind was Halloween. This is what I wrote:

I was born on Halloween. Long before I arrived, my family celebrated this holiday with gusto—costumes, pumpkins, and scares for all ages. As a kid, my birthday parties were always held at home, at our house with its acre-sized backyard full of old sheds and forts and other good places to haunt. When night fell, the costumed party guests had to follow the trail of jack-o-lanterns through the backyard, reading creepy notes and encountering masked ghouls and terrifying traps at every turn. This was my favorite time of the year. After a hiatus when there were no appropriately-aged children in the family, we started the Halloween parties up again, though now I am on the other side of the horror. I set the traps. I wear the masks. I write the notes that lead the new generation of victims down the trail of jack-o-lanterns. I haunt my childhood home with pride. It’s still my favorite time of year.

The witch's laundry — The witch’s laundry

Despite the fact that I’ve eaten way too much sugar this week, Halloween for me as never been about the candy. And although I like horror movies and ghost stories, it’s not really about those either. What makes this holiday special is the way my family celebrates it.

For me, Halloween is opening up cobwebby crates and breathing in the musty smell of ghosts that haven’t seen the light of day in a year. It’s watching my dad pose a dummy with careful precision, adjusting the gloves and boots just so. It’s listening to my brother brainstorm outlandish schemes for scaring his children. (Don’t worry, they’re fine.) It’s watching my mom hang “the witch’s laundry” on the clothesline and hearing my three-year-old niece quote Bram Stoker. “Beware! The dead travel fast!” (Yes, she really does this.) Halloween is running around the backyard at night with my cousin, wondering why it still creeps us out even though we know who the monsters are. It’s seeing my aunt’s costume for the first time. She never tells us what she’s going to be and it’s always something awesome. Halloween means smiling at my husband as he shakes his head at the rest of us. Sometimes I think he must feel like he married into the Addams Family.

It’s looking out into the dark and seeing the glow of a jack-o-lantern face. It’s pointing my flashlight at a homemade tombstone and saying, “Uh-oh… this one’s for you.” It’s removing our masks at the end of the party and all talking at once, each and every monster and victim sharing his or her story and battle scars.

Halloween, to me, means screams and laughter in equal measure.

October is drawing to a close. My family celebrated early this year, and the party was another one for the record books. Everyone survived despite what their tombstones said. Tomorrow is Halloween, and I’ll be at home, handing out candy to trick-or-treaters, scaring them with my fake spiders and bubble wrap, and hoping that they’re having at least a fraction of the fun I had when I was their age.

Happy Halloween, everyone! And thanks for celebrating with me all month. If you missed any of my October posts, you can catch up here:

Next month I’ll be taking a bit of a break from blogging. I’m sure I won’t be completely silent, but it’s time I buckle down and get some serious work done. When it comes to real fear, ghosts and goblins have got nothing on deadlines and word counts. I’ll miss you though! And I promise to be back soon.

The Tomato-Elevator and Other Weird Stuff

One year ago today, my shortest and weirdest horror story was published at MicroHorror. Though I can’t explain why, I’m actually quite fond of it. Here is “The Tomato-Elevator.”

The Tomato-Elevator

The tomato-elevator had accidentally produced a squash, again. The director would be displeased.

The workers sought to find the hiccup in the mechanism, but due to the make-up of the machine, it was impossible to see what went on between the thirteenth rung and the fourteenth without dismantling the apparatus completely. And that was forbidden by the warning label. All they could know for sure was that at rung thirteen, they had a slightly bruised, despondent tomato, and at rung fourteen they had an extremely confident squash.

“Why does this keep happening?” asked Bill, who had only been elevating tomatoes for three weeks.

No one responded, but eyes looked at eyes looked at eyes and none of the eyes were Bill’s.

The eyes all said the same thing. There had never been a squash before Bill arrived.

The director was on her way. Decisions had to be made.

“What if…” Bill licked his lips with the effort of thinking, “…what if we made a squash-demoter? You think? You think maybe at rung thirteen it might…”

The eyes looked at the floor looked at the shoes. The eyes did not acknowledge that this was a good idea.

“Fellas?” Bill inquired at bowed heads, hunched shoulders. “Fellas…”

Arms reached, hands grabbed, fingers gripped. Mouth was covered, limbs were restrained, necessary adjustments were made.

Parts were removed.

By the time the director arrived, the machine had been loaded, the mess cleaned up. The workers wore expressions of complacent boredom which clashed with the beads of sweat forming on white foreheads.

Checkmarks on clipboards, satisfied nods to the symphonic whir of machinery, bland admonishments about time and productivity. The director’s stay lasted only forty-seven seconds. She had left the room before the large, dark, misshapen tomato entered the elevation chamber.

When Bill’s heart went from the thirteenth rung to the fourteenth, it turned into a squash.