Yesterday was our annual trip to the pumpkin patch, and Mark could barely contain his enthusiasm.
"You ready to go get pumpkins?" I asked.
"Nah," he sighed. "I don't want one this year."
"You...what?" I gasped. "How could you not want a pumpkin?"
"I just want to hang out at home," he said. I must note that the activity I was interrupting was...nothing. No video games or TV shows, he was just too lazy to leave the house for a pumpkin.
But I wasn't having it. I strongly encouraged him to get his shoes on and get in the car, and he was smart enough to do so.
I planned our trip around 5:30, because I figured the light is best for photos then, and all the families would be eating dinner. Boy, was I wrong...the pumpkin patch was mobbed, with more people than I've ever seen there, and the sun was already setting behind the buildings. Strikes 1 and 2.
I thought Mark would be interested once we got there, but he really wasn't. He refused to sit on the big pumpkins, or to sit with any other pumpkins in the field. He demanded we buy a huge pumpkin immediately so we could leave, but I reminded him he doesn't get a pumpkin until I get a nice photo. He just groaned.
He darted toward the giant pumpkins, trying to pick up the biggest one. I saw $50 of pumpkin dropping to the ground in my head, and hissed at him to put the damn thing down.
He did, but only because it was too heavy to lift for long. He tried lifting every other giant pumpkin nearby, and finally settled on an already-broken pumpkin.
"I want this one," he demanded. (He was in quite a mood!)
But Mark's not the first (or last) strong-willed, stubborn Dinsdale.
"Let's go," I answered. "I'm not leaving until I get a nice picture."
I finally did get a decent picture, though:
"Really?" I asked him, flabbergasted. "THAT'S the pumpkin you want to carve?"
"Yup!" he answered. "Let's go."
He paid for his baby pumpkin. It was $1.20, the cheapest it ever cost me to get out of there. But Mark was furious when the lady stamped a "paid" stamp on it--he immediately wiped it off.
"You have to show them the stamp when you leave," I reminded him. "How will they know you paid for it?"
"I paid!" he snorted. "No one's gonna check."
And they didn't.
My obnoxious young son had done everything he could to ruin our trip to the pumpkin patch. He was making me grouchy, and I thought it best to leave before I lost my temper in front of the approximately one million people surrounding me.
But just as we left, a guy in front of us hoisted a giant pumpkin onto his shoulder. It looked heavy, but he never slowed down. I looked at Mark and his tiny little pumpkin, and at the guy in front with his giant pumpkin. The contrast was hilarious.
Turns out, not even Mark's bad attitude can trump a funny picture.
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