Sister of Pumpkin Head

            Everyone in my family loves Halloween. Some of us love it a little too much. Take my little brother, Steve. He went to culinary school so he is a little more artist than some. He carves the coolest jack-o-lanterns and will have a huge butcher knife sticking out of the top of it or take some gigantic screws and spark plugs and have them sticking out at various places in poor Jack’s head. He has, on several occasions, gotten a pumpkin big enough to fit over his head and made his jack-o-lantern a mask…and then set out to scare the bejesus out of unsuspecting family members.

            I had just arrived at my mom and dad’s house to have my little boy trick-or-treat them when my parents asked if my brother had found me yet. I knew that this was a bad thing considering that they were laughing. I asked why he was looking for me; they said “no reason, he just wants to show you his Halloween costume.” I didn’t know what he was dressed as but I knew that he was out to scare me into peeing my pants. I became a little paranoid and decided that we would go to my grandma’s house rather than be a sitting duck for whatever was coming for me. I am that big of a chicken.

            My mom, my son, my husband, and I went to my elderly grandma’s house and spent some time there, all the while I was looking out the window and waiting for the door to swing open and have him run in to frighten me. I did feel safer at Grandma’s though because I knew that Steve would not try to scare me at the expense of giving Grandma a heart attack…until I learned that he had already been to her house in his costume. The boy had no shame but for a moment I felt that my efforts at hiding out were going to pay off. He had already been to Grandma’s so he wouldn’t need to come back. But I also considered that he was looking for me and all my short-lived comfort evaporated.  My mom was telling me that he had shown our other brother his costume. Steve had hidden in the back seat of his car and sat up once the driver’s side door shut. I was feeling really squeamish at this point.  

            We decided that it was time to leave Grandma’s and head back to my mom’s to drop her off. It was ridiculously dark out and I was unhappy that I had to walk thirty feet to my car in this pitch black night. Steve could be lurking behind my car or behind a tree, waiting for his opportunity to jump out and scare me to death. We got to the car without incident and I wish I could say that I was breathing easier. I was not; we were just a moving target now.

            We pulled into my mom’s driveway and there was my brother’s car. I jumped out of the car before it stopped, good thing my husband was driving, ran to the house and plowed through the front door just as he was putting his mask on to go out the back way, no doubt to circle the house and scare me before I made it to the sanctuary of the lighted entry way. He had on old, dirty coveralls and the biggest jack-o-lantern I had ever seen was his mask. Upon seeing him in this getup I was thankful that I had found him before he found me. I would’ve peed myself for sure.

            Sister of Pumpkin Head, that’s me.