The Great Pumpkin Disaster!

Our Halloween party is rapidly approaching. It looks like the the turnout will be robust. Planning has been going along smoothly. Up until now.

While in the US, we purchased candy corn, candy pumpkins, and Peeps (yes, Peeps!). A little taste of traditional Halloween candy for our Swedish friends. Well, traditional except for the Peeps part. Also found costumes for ourselves and the dogs [party pix to be posted next week]. Lots of scary decorations for the apartment. And this guy...

Yes, a Devil Domo plush toy! In fact, we got two additional little Halloween-themed Domos from Target. Don't judge. I have had a Domo for 7 years. I like strange and cute figures from Japan. No comments from the peanut gallery.

Anywho, we decorated the apartment this past weekend. TJ did the bulk of the heavy lifting. Stringing cobwebs and setting a plastic spider into said cobweb. Hanging bats from our circular staircase belfry. Gluing a plastic skull onto a beer bottle. Did I mention that TJ was putting up the decorations? On Saturday we went grocery shopping and picked up two pumpkins. A postmortem analysis:

Buying your pumpkins 6 days before our Halloween party - Seems logical.
Carving your pumpkin 6 days before your Halloween party - Shouldn't be a problem.
Keeping the pumpkins indoors - Might be a problem.
Pumpkin becoming soft and squishy in places 3 days before your Halloween party - A bad problem.
Mold growing on your pumpkins 3 days before your Halloween party - A very bad problem.

The autopsy photo clearly shows the problem.

So, if you happen to be attending our Halloween party on Friday night and see one or two [skillfully carved] pumpkins, you will know that the pumpkin elves were hard at work Friday afternoon.