By this time, my girlfriend had tired of the nonsense and was demanding that I put Clive to rest. "But sweetie," I would plead, "Clive is like an aging relative! I realize he's incontinent and senile, but we need to keep him around! Just because he reminds us of our own death doesn't mean we should lock him up in a vegetable home!" In the end, we settled for the compromise of keeping Clive, but I had to spray the porch with a generous helping of Lysol each morning to fend off the pumpkin-rot.

This picture shows Clive at approximately three weeks old. The fuzzy white mold is now approaching critical mass; note similarity in texture to cotton candy.

next page: tragedy.