Ewwwww...

My son and I went to the pumpkin farm on Saturday, and we carved out the pumpkin we got there on Sunday.

We put it on the front porch with a little LED candle in it that cycled through colors as it lit up the inside of the jack-o-lantern.

It's been outside for one day now...a day and a half I guess. I was replacing the light bulb above our front door, and when I stepped down off the ladder, I totally stepped on it. I ruined that pumpkin, breaking it in several places, but that's not at all the thing that sticks in my mind from the experience. My son's going to be sad that it's broken, but much, much worse and more indelible in my mind is the cloud of flies that lifted off the thing when I bumped it. You can kind of see them in this picture, but rest assured that this picture only shows a small portion of them...

Out west, where I grew up, there wasn't enough moisture to foster so many frigging insects. You could leave a pumpkin outside for weeks before it ever started to rot and attract bugs. Not one day. Is this one day outside and it's a bug mess thing the common experience around the country and the world? I'd like to know. Please comment and tell me if it's me that's weird here or not.

And if it is the norm, then how did making jack-o-lanterns ever become a thing? They're gross!