In October 1993, I was working for a small chain of grocery stores. Being the resident computer nerd, I had to deal quite a bit with the administrative types. This meant I had to deal with the dreaded human resources personnel. Betty, the company HR woman, decided that we were going to have a pumpkin carving contest. The results would be proudly displayed in the windows of all the stores. Prizes were to be given to the most creative and scary pumpkins. It would be a "get to know the people behind the scenes" sort of thing. Heh heh. The big Day O' Carving arrived. Betty arrived at 6:00 am and proudly lugged thirty heavy pumpkins to the company conference room. She spread out a dazzling array of hardware: silver scooping spoons, ceramic bowls in which to place the pumpkin pulp, and a gleaming assortment of carving knives. She made little pumpkin signs with little pumpkin knock-knock jokes and placed them meticulously in everyone's cubicle. Then she sat back and waited for the fun to begin. I strolled into the conference room seven hours later and saw Betty sitting alone in the corner. Her pumpkins had not been touched. "How's it going?" I asked, sitting down. "Not too good," said Betty. Her eyes were red from crying. "No one's carved any pumpkins," I remarked. "Yeah." "Well, I just came in to carve one myself," said I. "Really?" She brightened. "Hey, two prizes are being given away, right?" "For most creative and most scary." "Maybe I can win both," I said as I looked over the gourds. At that instant I knew my mission: to carve the most disgusting, wretched pumpkin ever known. First I selected the foulest pumpkin I could find. It looked like Morton Downey, Jr., with warts and tumors all over its hideous, oozing skin. Then I carved two giant sad eyes, eyes that seemed to hold deep regret for a squandered life. An overblown pug nose was eclipsed only by its gaping mouth. For the final touch, I scooped all the pulp, seeds, and chunks of pumpkin back into the mouth so it looked like it was heaving. I called it "Pumpkin Blowing Chunks" and signed my name on the back. As fate would have it, exactly two other people ended up carving pumpkins, and of course they won. I think the "Most Creative" jack-o-lantern had two triangles for eyes, a triangle for a nose, and a rectangle for a mouth. The "Most Scary" wasn't even finished. The guy had just cut off the top and started scooping out the innards when he was called back to desk. So the winning jack-o-lanterns were displayed in the front of one of the stores, while mine was hidden in the basement, where it began to rot. A few days passed before I realized this terrible injustice. When I finally found the cellar where they had thrown away my art, the pumpkin was covered in mold and ooze. One of the eyes was completely molded shut and the pulp-vomit was covered with black and grey moss. It was fearsome! After I finally stopped laughing, I took it back to my cubicle where I just stared at it enraptured. The skin around the eyes and nose was starting to discolor, so it looked like it had melanoma. The whole thing was a saggy, mushy mess. Later, someone was talking to me and they had to turn the thing around because it was so disgusting. For no apparent reason, I named my pumpkin Clive. next page: pictures 'n' more!