Chaos

Did anybody else have any trouble at the gas pumps today? First of all, gas had jumped over forty cents a gallon since last night. I had to have gas to get to work, so I stopped at my regular gas station just as usual. But when I pulled in it was CRAZY!!! Apparently this was one of the only places that hadn't raised their prices (yet), so people were lined up trying to buy cheap (comparatively speaking) gas. Lines were long, people were angry. I got caught up in a line before I even realized what was going on. Because seriously....I would have preferred to go someplace else and pay that extra forty cents a gallon. But I couldn't even back up or turn around to leave. I waited over 2o minutes to pull up to a pump. At some point this little old lady came charging in, squeezing her oversized sedan past all these cars, and then wedged herself right in to cut in line at a pump right in front of the woman who was in front of me. That woman immediately jumped out of her car and started some whole screaming argument right in front of my car. She was yelling at the old lady. I was horrified. But honestly, even though I normally try to have patience with older folks, and even though this woman looked like Grandma Moses on a bad day, she had to have known that she was breaking into a long line. Didn't she? Wouldn't all those dozens of cars sitting around the pumps have clued her in? I don't know. I just know it was crazy, and I was a little bit afraid. It felt like I had just wandered into a war zone or something.

I'm not sure I understand what the hell is going on, anyway. I mean, technically as of 8am today the storm hadn't even hit yet. Why would gas prices go up before anybody even really knows what is going to happen? Also...by lunchtime today alot of places had raised their prices another twenty cents or so. Gas that was $3.57 a gallon yesterday is now somewhere in the neighborhood of $4.25. Who knows how much it will be tomorrow.....its scary.

Score!!!

We have pumpkins, people!!! Sometime between when I drove home from work yesterday afternoon, and the time that I went back to work this morning the pumpkins arrived at the pumpkin house!!! It made me happy. And apparently the pumpkin delay was drought-related, because there is a serious reduction in their numbers this year. There is only a fraction of what they usually have on display. Oh well. At least they are there. I feel so much better now.

The Pumpkin House....

There is this house a few miles up the road from us that we have always called "The Pumpkin House". Thats because every Labor Day weekend, just like clockwork, they transformed their front yard from a regular lawn to a virtual sea of orange pumpkins. This has been going on for at least....well, we have lived here for 25 years, so its been that long. Maybe longer. Those people (I don't know their names) have supplied this county with pumpkins for decades!!! I always looked forward to it. Even though its still hot here in early September, it was a sign that fall was on its way.

This year, for some reason, there are NO pumpkins. I have no idea why. I don't know if they are getting older and have decided to retire from the pumpkin business. Or maybe the drought has something to do with it. Maybe pumpkins didn't grow well in this area. I keep hoping that maybe they are just late. Can dry weather delay the harvest for a few weeks? I don't know. Maybe I am just holding on to false hope, like Linus waiting in the pumpkin patch for the Great Pumpkin who never arrives. But I do know that I miss them. The pumpkins in the grocery store just aren't the same. How can fall come with NO pumpkins at The Pumpkin House????
I have half a mind to stop by and ask them whats going on. They don't know me, and they will probably think I am a crazy person, but I want to know.