When did the scent and flavor of pumpkin become a fetish?
I’m weary of hearing women rhapsodize about their freaking pumpkin spiced lattes and how long they’ve waited for their pumpkin and what an ordeal it’s been going without their “PSL.” I’m certain, like 100 percent certain, some of these women have never spoken about their spouses with such longing and enthusiasm.
If that wasn’t enough to make me anti-pumpkin, I get a Bath and Body Works coupon in the mail basically inviting me to slather myself in pumpkin from head to toe.
There’s a sweet cinnamon pumpkin, caramel pumpkin, pumpkin apple, pumpkin cranberry cider, pumpkin cupcake, pumpkin berry crumble, coconut pumpkin and a marshmallow pumpkin latte. Am I the only one thinking why in the world would a grown woman want to go around smelling like a marshmallow pumpkin? And wouldn’t a marshmallow pumpkin be a Halloween Peep? Who wants to smell like that?
And what about that pumpkin berry crumble? What if the exfoliating agent in the soap is actual crumble? That’s just not right. It would like eating dessert in the bathroom and have we as a society reached that level of gluttony – multi-tasking sweet shower snacks? But that’s not even the thing that is really messing with my mind. Pumpkin coconut is. Does that even go together? It just sounds wrong.
It’s not that I don’t like pumpkin. I do, but a couple of years ago you would make some pumpkin bread and a couple of pumpkin pies and that would be about it. Now, it’s a pumpkin palooza. Last month, in the death grip of summer, I was already seeing multiple lists online for the “Top 10 things you can do with pumpkin.”
There shouldn’t be a pumpkin top 10. There should be, at best, a Top 2. You can eat pumpkin and you can carve a pumpkin for Halloween. The pumpkin, from the proud squash family, was never meant to be decoupaged with Mod Podge and used as a repository for the toilet paper roll in your downstairs half bath.
I blame the internet for creating this current siege of pumpkin mania. Mainly because compiling Top 10 lists is the click bait that makes the internet go round and round. Once pumpkin got a starring role, it was doomed, as in pumpkin coconut doomed.
Imagine if the internet was devoid of Top 10 lists. There would be barely anything for us to click on and hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, of people whose sole job it is to make up lists of random crap would be out of work.
I’m not saying we need help in the economic downturn department but on a positive note, it could lead to an age of renaissance on the internet. Think about if you never had to see another Top 10 list. Would your quality of life not improve? Mine would.
For example, I recently clicked on the “Top 10 list of things people over 40 do that make their houses look old.” Guess what was on that list? Lace doilies. Do most people born after the invention of Lycra yoga pants even know what a doily is? Can you imagine anyone in the 21st century strewing lace doilies throughout their home?
Heck no. Who in the hell is writing this stuff and why am I clicking on it?
About that clicking, have you noticed once you get to the site it’s so full of ads that you can’t figure out where to click. Finding the arrow to get to the story is the internet version of “Where’s Waldo.” (Some of the ads are disturbing. They always seems to be about a medical abnormality or how to fix crepey skin.)
It’s laid out so unless you’re a digital genius guess where you end up clicking? Yeah, the crepey skin quick fix, which, by the way, sounds dreadful.
This is what’s happened to the pumpkin. It’s been over-clicked and now gobs of people think that they must lust for anything remotely pumpkin. The kick in the old jack o’lantern is that most of the things that say pumpkin are in reality pumpkin-free. Take the pumpkin spiced latte. Allegedly, after customer dismay of it being totally non-pumpkin, it now has a “small amount of pumpkin puree” which probably means less than 1/100th of a teaspoon.
I’m ready to bring back the sanctity of the pumpkin.
It deserves better than its current status of smells like pumpkin or taste like pumpkin, but not really pumpkin. Someone please stop me before I do something I’ll regret. Yep, I want to compile a Top 10 list of why we need keep the pumpkin in pumpkin.
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Because I love and care about you I won’t now share a Top Ten list of why you need to read my latest book EMPTY. ❤️ Suffice it to say that it’s a fun and fabulous read that’s being called, “Wildly funny,” “Just wow,” “I couldn’t put it down,” and you know a lot of other really nice stuff that makes me happy. 😍
It’s available in ebook, paperback and audiobook. Click the link to be transported to everything EMPTY. www.amazon.com/dp/B09ZKPGQZQ
Snarky in the Suburbs 