The Great Pumpkin Crisis

You know how sometimes you just get a hankering for something?  And you just MUST HAVE that something.  Nothing else will do.  No substitutes will satisfy.

Well for me that something tonight was a pumpkin cupcake - a beautiful pumpkin cupcake slathered with mountains of cream cheese frosting. 

It didn't begin this way, my obsession.  No it began as just a notion.  I needed to stop at the store on the way home from knitting at the church to pick up some milk.  I had sort of been craving said cupcake so I told Brian that since I had to stop at the store I'd pick up some canned pumpkin.  Nothing too serious at this point.  I wouldn't have stopped at the store just for the canned pumpkin after all.  But as I neared the store I began visualizing my cupcake, still warm from the oven and dripping with frosting, and I could almost taste it.  I found that I was driving a little faster, hastening towards the object of my desire. 

I stopped at the "little" Owens (grocery store by my house) to pick up my items.  I went to the baking aisle, no canned pumpkin.  Odd.  I went to the "canned fruit" aisle.  No pumpkin.  Seriously?  Back to the baking aisle, I must have just missed it.  Nope.  Back to canned fruits.  Rinse and repeat about three times.  Finally, irritated but not surprised (the "little" Owens is, well, smaller and therefore doesn't carry everything I need all the time) I decide it truly isn't there.  I wonder to myself if it's seasonal...but I notice they have boat loads of canned cranberry sauce and gel and chutney, and seriouly if anything is seasonal that should be it!  I briefly wait in line to ask the check-out clerk if they have it and I'm just not seeing it.  But the line was too long so I decide to pay for my items at the U-scan and run to Marsh for the pumpkin.  Already I had an unhealthy need for the pumpkin.

I go to Marsh, a large grocery store in town that I find sells a lot of interesting and oddball items along with the regular stuff.  They'll have the pumpkin for sure.  I find the pie fillings and NO CANNED PUMPKIN.  I see the place it should be on the shelf, three rows of it with the price tags on the shelf telling me this is where it belonged.  I stand in awed shock.  How can this be?  This is getting stupid ridiculous. 

Determined not to be bested by canned pumpkin, and convinced that my cupcake is going to taste that much better, I decide to drive all the way across town to the "big" Owens.  I frankly, think it is the best grocery store in town.  They will not let me down.  I phone Brian to tell him where I'm headed and warn him that if big Owens does not have the pumpkin someone is going to have to pay.  I don't know who, but they'll pay big.  I hit the baking aisle with confidence only to be greeted by a sign that reads, "We're sorry.  We are currently out of canned pumpkin."  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

Is there some pumpkin crisis going on that I didn't know about?  Was there a hurricane that hit a large pumpkin crop thus rendering this pumpkin shortage?  Have the pumpkin crops of this world been struck by blight or pumpkin rot?  Are the local schools studying the merits of the pumpkin and every child in Warsaw has simultaneously decided to make a school project out of canned pumpkin?  Is it Korean Thanksgiving right now and the entire population of Koreans in the region is celebrating but have adopted the American tradition of pumpkin pie?  I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT'S HAPPENING!

I looked at the boxes of cake mixes for a minute, thinking I could just bake something else and it would be just as good and I would forget I ever wanted a pumpkin cupcake.  Right?  But I just didn't have it in me.  I called Brian on the way home and squeezed out in a pained voice, "it's not good - I can't talk about it," and hung up the phone.  Oh the humanity!

So, in the end, I did not have a pumpkin cupcake.  I was bested - defeated if you will.  My mom and I talked today about planting a garden together (because I do not have fertile soil in which to sew seeds) and she said I should think about what I'd like to plant.  I'll tell you Mom.  I'll tell you right now that we need to dedicate a large portion of your yard to a pumpkin patch so that I never have to go through this devastation again.  Noone should ever have to live without pumpkin.  And I'd like to see to it that noone does.