Have You Seen This Pumpkin?//October 320th, 2020

 Let’s go on a journey today, back to Halloween season 1999.

1999 was an odd year for Yours Ghoul-ly. I was twelve years old and had just started middle school, and to say it was a hard transition would be an understatement. As someone who had few friends to begin with, being put in a larger, more bustling environment made me feel more alone than ever. Learning the ropes, both relating to the new school environment and being a “pre-teen” when I still felt very much like a child, was difficult. I lived for the weekends, and on Sunday nights, my stomach would tie itself in knots in the way only a scared child’s can. It was very difficult for me to think of anything else, because I knew my next school day was always looming right around the corner. Even the most important things to me tend to get lost in times of major transitions, as if I forget who I am for a bit.

There was a Saturday afternoon that year, though, that would change everything, and become a very important part of my Halloween history.

It was either very late September or early October; close enough to Halloween that some houses were decorated, but not so close that Halloween decorations were everywhere yet. My parents decided to take a drive somewhere, I believe to a small fall vendor festival that happened every year a few towns over, and I was happy to go along to try and distract myself from the fact that there was only a day and a half standing between me and my next horrific day of seventh grade. As per usual, I was looking out the window hoping to see some Halloween decorations, though with all the stress I was under, my heart wasn’t truly in it.

But then, I saw her.

We turned up a side street, and there, in the large picture window of a house on the right side, flanked by two candles on the windowsill, was a cardboard cutout of a winking pumpkin.

To this day I don’t know what it is about this particular pumpkin, but something about her just set the jack o’lantern flame inside my heart ablaze. In that moment, my rattled, twelve-year-old brain calmed down for the first time since school started, and I was reminded of what made me truly happy. This was no time to be down and out! Halloween was coming! Suddenly I could see myself trick-or-treating. I could smell the autumn air. I could feel the spooky vibes of Halloween night and everything that came with it. I was alive again, and all because of that winking pumpkin.

Of course, I instantly made it my personal mission to find a pumpkin like her (who I oh-so originally named “Winky”...apparently the stress of seventh grade took a massive toll on my creativity!) to call my own. At the time, Halloween pop-up shops weren’t as big a thing as they are now, so my searches were limited to Party City, a couple of local party stores, and the Halloween sections of places like WalMart, Kmart, or grocery stores. Unfortunately, I had no luck that year, but vowed I’d find her the next.

I did see her again, but never on a store shelf. The following year, she appeared in the window of a house up the hill from my school bus stop. The year after that, she was being used as a decoration on a billboard advertising Halloween events at a local country club. For a couple of years she was also displayed prominently, and appropriately, in the window of a house at the end of a road rumored to be haunted. Given the fact that all the places I’d seen her seemed to local, I assumed she had to be available somewhere nearby, but sadly, I never saw her for sale.

To this day, I search for her on resale sites like eBay, Etsy, and Mercari. I search under every term I can possibly think of, scrolling for however long time permits. I have never once even seen her in an eBay listing or anything of the sort, even as part of a lot. It’s gotten to the point where I’ve almost started to believe she was just some figment of my Halloween-obsessed imagination, sent to bring me back to life when I needed her most. I would almost be ready to settle on that theory if it wasn’t for one small detail:

She appeared in the background of the Halloween episode of Sabrina The Teenage Witch in season four, and I managed to find the episode online and grab a screenshot:

It’s not a great picture, but it’s the only picture I have of her, literally the only proof I have of her existence.

So now I must ask, have you seen this pumpkin? Was she perhaps part of your own childhood decor? Is she really as rare as she seems? And, most importantly, do you know where I might find her? 

She remains, to this day, my ultimate holy grail Halloween item, and pretty much the only one that has eluded me. I would love nothing more than to meet her in person, hold her in my hands at last, and thank her for reminding me of who I am at one of the most difficult points in my life. 

Stay spooky, my friends.