Picture this.  A gorgeous, clear autumn day.  A New England county fair.  A bunch of big geeks panting next to their humongous pumpkins.  There you have it.  The Topsfield Fair Giant Pumpkin Contest.

“Do you think we’ll make the top five?”  Bob asks.

“Yes, of course, dear.”  I patted him on the back, just above the stupid smiley-face pumpkin embroidered on his dayglow orange sweatshirt.

A hush came over the crowd in the huge exhibition hall.  We heard the rumbling of a tractor.

“This guy could break the world record,” whispered Bob.

“Really?  Doing what?”  He gave me a look. 

A big brawny man, wearing a paper mache pumpkin on his head, drove the tractor to the center of the arena.  The crowd was silent.  On the flatbed, was a really gigantic round object covered by a green tarp.

“Does he cover it so no one will know what it is?” I asked.  Another look.

All right.  I’m a co-dependent wife of a pumpkin pusher.  It’s not an easy life.  I’ll explain.

Some farmer in Nova Scotia sells GIANT pumpkin seeds. Seven seeds from a three hundred pound pumpkin costs five dollars.  But for ten dollars, he’ll send (the same size) seeds from an eight hundred pound pumpkin.  Now, Bob believes there really are two different piles of seeds in this guy’s barn.

When they come, he handles them like day-old ducklings.  Eventually, they sprout between damp paper towels which he keeps on the sunny window sill behind the sink.  Once he forgot to tell me this.  I was wiping a spill from the cat’s food bowl.

“HEY!!”

I jumped and hit my head on the kitchen table.

“Give me that!”  His face was contorted like an angry gargoyle.

I gave him the towel filled with wet cat food.  He cradled it and picked out a sprouted, but broken, seed.

“I’m really sorry, Bob.”  But he couldn’t hear.  He solemnly walked away, all the time looking down at the dead seed. 

Thankfully, more sprouted.

Early one morning, before the bees wake up, he cross-pollinates two flowers from different pumpkins.  During this, he whispers.

“Are you talking dirty to your pumpkins again, Bob?”  I ask him this every year, and he never answers me.

“Next time, we’ll take a turkey baster and inject the pumpkin with water so it weighs more,” I said, as we watched eight men lift the would-be record setter’s pumpkin onto the scale. 

Channel Five’s camera crew was recording, as I put it, “REALLY, REALLY important history in the making.”  A man in an orange tuxedo, who ought to have a professional do his psychological profile, took the microphone and declared him the winner.

“I want a recount!” I yelled, as Bob pulled me back.

“You’re a terrible sport.”

“But I want you to win,” I said, realizing instantly, but too late, that Mr. Cliché Man would appear.

“You know winning isn’t everything.”

“Yes it is, Bob.”

“No, it’s not.”  And he took my hand.  We walked out of the building and into the mainstream of the county fair.  The deep autumn sunlight sparkled off the bees surrounding the apple-crisp seller.  As we tasted the cold vanilla ice cream covered with sweet oats and hot apples, the Topsfield Parade of Children (all dressed like scarecrows) came laughingly our way, through the narrow aisle past the lady selling blueberry jam.

I looked up at my husband who was thoroughly enjoying the moment, while feeling the glow of the day’s camaraderie and the pride of his accomplishment, all the while with ice cream on his mustache.  This was truly the best year of all.