At my ripe old age, I carved my first jack-o-lantern ever this weekend.
That's him on the left. Grrr.
Boy did I love my jack-o-lantern. I gave him a menacing monocle and a mouth snarling a la Jon Stewart’s impersonation of Dick Cheney. Loved him.
Apparently I was not the only one of ripe old age.
THAT can't be good.
As I texted the husband the news about Monocle Jack, seconds after this picture was taken, Monocle Jack collapsed in front of my eyes and hung over the side of the table.
I quickly learned some lessons about cleaning up a dead jack-o-lantern solo.
- Use rubber gloves. Trust that you do not want to get this on your skin. “All-Natural” is not always best.
- Be prepared for unspeakable horrors inside the jack-o-lantern carcass. You thought the scary stuff on Halloween was fake blood and zombies and your kids’ sugar rushes, right? Try picking up a damp, mushy jack-o-lantern, having it shred apart in your hands, and witnessing a fleet of fruit flies and the complete color spectrum of mold.
- Bring an old bath towel. You’re going to get a flood of dead pumpkin juice which can range from clear to green. Wrap it around the pumpkin carcass like a moat.
- Work fast. The pumpkin is not going to want to participate nicely.
- Bring a large plastic garbage bag and tuck it over the pumpkin carcass. Use the bag to scoop up as much of the carcass as possible, then carefully roll over the bag. Have that bath towel handy!
- Once you’ve bagged up all scraps of the pumpkin carcass, including whatever scraps you can remove from the towel, get a second trash bag and double-bag it. Lifting the trash bag is not the time to find out it has a leak.
- Off to the dumpster! And be sure to immediately wash the towel and disinfect all involved surfaces.
For my compost-workin’ friends, sorry that I can’t advise you, but I welcome your tips in the comments.
And one final note – I’ll show pics of Monocle Jack 2.0 this weekend as soon as he’s carved. Halloween will not be denied!
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