~ PUMPKIN TREE APPARENT RIP-OFF ~

I did everything the pamphlet told me to do. I watered it... I gave it sunshine and healthy doses of personal warmth. I played  music to it and always spoke to it in a positive manner. However... 3 years and numerous wishes later, that pumpkin tree hadn't offered up a single piece of evidence that it was even a pumpkin tree at all! Why, it may as well have been a watermelon tree, for as many of those as it bloomed my way.

Over the years, I grew weary of the yearly hunt for the perfect pumpkin. One that had a nice shape and color, and yes, even personality plays a factor. No one enjoys angry pumpkins. Typically you only see happy pumpkins for sale. Halloween ushers in pumpkin season, and it's around then we find ourselves being emmersed in pumpkin-based sights and delights. Carvings, drawings, and all those great pumpkin jokes(there have to be some??) resurface around this time of year. Thanksgiving sees the utilization of the pumpkin in many fine foods. I like pumpkin pies. I also like sweet potato pies. Anyone with some info on how to tell the difference between a sweet potato pie and a pumpkin pie, even after biting into it--please email this knowledge to a grateful author here!

But I digress. The focus here is the very confounding tale of the pumpkin tree--that special little sapling that I so loved, or so I tried!

Well... this travelin' fellow sold me this here pumpkin tree a few years back, and he said "I guarantee it will probably  work". His "guarantee" was probably not based on any sort of fact. But he had kids in the car, and I felt sorry for them (they were sharing an Ipod, for goodness' sake... and so, I bought one of them little pumpkin trees. $ 12.95, but that included a fine red, plastic container and the ultimately useless pumpkin-pamphlet.

It took a year and a half for the plant to even produce a leaf. It may have not been a leaf at all, but could have been some sort of exotic pumpkin-fungus. At age three-ish, the poor thing was about ten feet tall, skinny, not too bushy, but robust and it began producing these sticky, sweet-smelling flowers. its leaves were dark green and jagged. But not a pumpkin, or anything remotely squash-ish was apparent. I had high hopes the summer sun would reward me with a fine pumpkin. I was very let down, and that August I finally gave up on it, and tossed it on a debris-fire I had going. So, I got rid of the "impotent" pumpkin tree... It was really green, and it took it a while to really flame on. But it got going, and boy, it was really smoky. But hell, it was on fire, after all. I thought how funny fire was sometimes. I also noticed a really funny mustard stain on my shirt. Apparently I was actually emotionally attached to that tree. I felt a bit sad, so perhaps to overcompensate, I started to laugh--at something---It sounded like someone else laughing. They were laughing exactly the way I would laugh, if faced with humor or bondage-tickling...

For some reason, burning that pumpkin tree was extremely hilarious. As I stood there gazing at the blaze, mourning possible future pumpkins, I was suddenly overcome with that uncontrollable laughter. "Pumpkin"... did I SAY that, or did I THINK it? Or did my stomach grumble it audibly? Did you ever notice how trees, illuminated by flickering flames, seem to have faces? Funny faces, and quirky hats too... Like, I saw my Uncle Carl Bob in the tree-reflections of the dancing embers. He was trying to say something to me. "Ice cream" was the only thing that came to me. I found it too funny that my Uncle Carl Bob, 13 years dead, seemed only to want to dance, and he wriggled all in the treetops, his sheer deadness protecting him from the savage heat, and probably enhancing his casual levitation. Carl Bob started laughing too, and we found that the more we laughed---well---the more we laughed.

I miss my pumpkin tree, even though it never produced a single pumpkin, not even a pumpkin-bud. The day I burned it is kind of fuzzy in my mind. But torching stuff can wear you out... I woke up four hours later in the spare-room on the futon with a plastic bowl stuck to my face, in a pool of something sticky, which smelled totally like chocolate ice-cream.
Well, I suppose the moral of this fantastic tale might be---BUYER BEWARE---or... "Don't count your pumpkins before they exist". That kind of shit will drive you out of your gourd. I hope folks have better luck with these things than I do ~

Max Raincloud

SECRET-AGENT BUGS THAT WOULD SCARE JAMES BOND, BUT HE REALLY WOULDN'T CARE : (he'd be shaken, but not stirred)

As if we didn't have enough to worry about, there is yet another threat to our security which few have stumbled upon. I am one of those stumblers. That threat now manifests itself as GIANT INSECTs ! Stop just a few seconds and then continue. Did you picture some gnarly bug crawling across the ground ? Sure you did. But there are some not quite so ordinary big scary bugs making their debut as of late. It may have been early, depending on your time-zone. These awesome arthropods do a lot more than crawl across the ground or hop among the cornstalks and weeds! James Bond would be impressed if he knew what new gadgets are available to practically anyone who can find a Radio Shack.

Recent inconsistent studies have shown that many of your average GIANT INSECTS may or may not be robotic drones that are being designed to carry everything from secret-video-thingies to dirty bombs, but probably aren't, if you want to choose sides. Actually, at any given moment in this country there are upwards of 500 active insect-drones engaged in unlawful spying and indeed, they are the first contact which leads to the final sweep, the take-down which awaits the unsuspecting perpetrator. What is typically perpetrated is admittedly, a complete mystery to me. Probably, it concerns national security, but don't quote, record, make note of, or hold me to that. IT ALWAYS concerns tons of cash. I base this not on fact, but on sheer misrepresentation of some stuff I barely remember reading, dreaming, or seeing etched on a cave-wall, or even hearing about. This for me is proof enough.

Some of the GIANT INSECTs that are on the move can mimmick friendly GIANT INSECTs. They may offer to refill your drink, or to cook you a fine meal. But once they have rid your house of all batteries (they are allergic to batteries, go figure) they will either drop a really dirty bomb in your closet, or record everything you say and do, and send it to the CIA for them to laugh about. You can't clean a dirty bomb, and you can't keep the CIA from laughing. You can throw them off a little by making strange submarine beeps into your lamps, which are probably bugged, literally, but eventually they will either wise-up or start dropping depth-charges.

GIANT INSECTs are tamed and regarded as pets in some parts of the world. They can learn to do all sorts of things, like turning on a faucet or fluffing your pillows for you.. But that's what's really so scary about the GIANT INSECTs. You can't tell a drone from a real one.

Technology is gross sometimes. What they do, and by "they" I mean I have no idea who it is ... what they do is they scrape out part of the GIANT INSECT'S brain, and replace it with nano-technology based surveillance gear or even something as simple as a drone programmed to surreptitiously eat all your Cornflakes at night, undetected, so as to slowly drive you insane wondering. But they scrape out the brains and put in the machines, creating armies of cyborg-sects. And the remote control to all these auto-sects will never be found in anyone's couch cushions.

This is breaking news, so It all may be erroneous, or manufactured out of boredom by someone I see a complete reverse of frequently. Smoke and mirrors is how "they" do it, so I too am trying to reflect on some smoldering stuff that you can choose to believe, but are best advised not to.

Two words: BUG SPRAY