The Pumpkin Patch

I said, “Hey, honey, let’s go to the pumpkin patch and look at all the cool stuff.” I’d never been to a pumpkin patch, but I kept driving by this one on my way to and from work, so I had to check it out. It looked cool at night, and that’s why I suggested bringing the camera. Well, I have to say that if this place was typical of most pumpkin patches then I’m not sure I was missing anything. Sure they sold pumpkins, but the place was more like some sort of weird traveling carnival, with inflatable slides, a moon bounce, booth games and, of all things, a petting zoo. It amazed me just how bad an outdoor venue could smell.

At the pumpkin patch in the next town over, Jocelyn and I saw a petting zoo and a giant inflatable slide. We took a few pictures of stuff and I got to smell some things I’d only heard about in farm songs, but the most interesting thing was the magic cowboy. You heard me right; a magic cowboy with a big silver hat and a horse with wings. He sat near the back of the patch with a little table and a door in a frame. His sign read: WRANGLER BOTEEN, THE MAGIC COWBOY (see, I told ya).

I was fascinated and walked up to him. “What kind of magic do you do?” I asked. “One trick per customer and it’s your choice.” He said, still smiling. So I told him I’d return and walked away to think.

I asked Jocelyn what I should request, and she said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She was busy photographing corn and gourds. She’s an artist, you know.

After a few minutes I made my way back to the cowboy and said, “I want you to magically send me back in time so I can kill Hitler.” To which he replied, “Okay, that’ll be three tickets.” I handed them over and he told me to walk to his door and knock. I did as instructed and had to suppress a laugh as I thought about knocking on a door that sat in a frame in the middle of a roadside pumpkin patch. When I was through knocking, the cowboy said, “Okay, go on through.”

I found my self on the other side of the door facing a roustabout with a squash in his hand. He was wearing a Hitler mustache and spoke to me in Mexican-accented German. “You will die, schweinhund!” He said, and came towards me with the squash raised above his head. Instinctively I kicked him in the nuts and took the vegetable from him. Then the cowboy called me back through the door.

“Well, has your magical request been fulfilled?” Wrangler Boteen asked and then bowed to me. “Um, no.” I told him. “First of all, you’re not really selling ‘magic’ here; it’s more like wish-granting. And even then it’s not very convincing.”

He listened as I spoke and then sat down and began to weep. I hadn’t meant to hurt his feelings so I walked up to him and put a hand on his shoulder, at which time his horse whinnied, took a large dump and then its fake wings fell off.

Get out a buy your pumpkin!