I'm at a loss as to how to describe our most recent weekend's outing... suffice it to say it involved it involved air cannons, world records, trophies, a good deal of mud, beer, lots of people and squash. Tons and tons of squash.

Give up? Yes, last Saturday we drove out to Delaware to attend the 2010 World Championship PunkinChunkin competition.

And there was much rejoicing.

(At least there was rejoicing from The KingofHearts, who has an eight-foot trebuchet stored in our back yard.)

If you aren't familiar with the fine art of what I think should actually be called Pumpkin Chuckin', (because if you are throwing the pumpkin, you'd be "chuCKin' it, amIright?) think about it this way: You and your buddies are standing out in a field one day and you're bored. You've got a lot of chores to do at home but none among you particularly wants to go home and have to actually do those chores so you stand there a bit longer. But you are bored. You see a stray pumpkin lying around on the ground and you bet your buddies that you can throw it further than they can. Boasts are made and trash is talked while you each secure a pumpkin of your very own with which to compete. You begin with an overhand shot-put-like approach and manage to toss it about fifteen feet down the row. Buddy #1 granny-shoots it twenty-five feet. Buddy #2 heaves his thirty feet and you all oooh and aaah at his manliness. By this time a few alcoholic beverages have been consumed and the Buddy #3 says, "lemme go get something for a sec," then he disappears and comes back with a M198 Howitzer, shoves the pumpkin down the barrel and shoots it across the field and into the neighboring rancher's land, killing a stray cow that happens to have the poor fortune to be grazing at an inopportune moment. You all declare Buddy #3 the Winner and shower him with praise and false aggrandizement. Then you make a date to come back next year and each try to best the other.

That is how it comes to this:

and this:


As crowded as it was at the Rally to Restore Sanity the weekend before, I think Punkin' Chuckin' 2010 was even worse because while I expected two-hundred thousand people to turn out for the Rally to Restore Sanity, I had no idea whatsoever that so many people would drive into the mud of Delaware to witness squash hurled through the air, nor that it would take us more then two hours to drive the mile from the main highway to the field where it was held.

But we persevered (mostly because the state troopers had turned all divided roads into one-way roads and you couldn't have turned around if you wanted to) and we were rewarded for it because we got to see some pretty funny things that day.

A toy helicopter with a camera strapped to it buzzed the crowd.


The girls got to pose with minor celebrities. Meet Miss Punkin Chunkin' 2010.


Actually, I believe that at this point in time they hadn't yet determined a Miss Punkin Chunkin'. I think this woman was just a contestant. But I'm not up on all the decorum and tranquility of the Chunkin' events, so I could be wrong. I just couldn't take my eyes off the fact that she had a pumpkin on her tiara.

As we were watching the trebuchet event, I suddenly heard The Dormouse yell at the top of her lungs and squeal, "It's Adam! LOOK, IT'S AAAAADAAAAAAMM!!"

I could not figure what she was talking about, until The KingofHearts pointed out the major celebrity in attendance:

Adam Savage from Mythbusters. (I have just now learned that Adam Savage was both a child actor and a puppeteer on Sesame Street. He acted in both a Billy Joel video and a "Please Don't Squeeze the Charmin" commercial before he fell into a career in special effects/Discovery Channel host. I couldn't love him more right now.)

The fact that she was more excited to catch a glimpse of Adam Savage's fedora than to actually meet all the characters from Disneyland says something about how we've chosen to raise our children: Nerdy and unlikely to have many friends throughout high school. But the good news is they'll probably end up with jobs that will be able to put The KoH and I in a nice nursing home one day... one where the staff is paid well enough to not steal our underwear when we're asleep, unlike this guy:


OK, so I might be having a bit of fun with the pumpkin chuckers, but we really did have a good time once we finally managed to get there. Folks there were pretty nice - one random person just walked up to the girls and gave them each a pair of those pumpkin glasses you see The Caterpillar sporting in the first picture above. Even the young twenty-something crowd were pretty cool around the girls, as we learned while waiting in line for the latrine and heard the three guys in front of us talking:

"You didn't go?!? DUDE! That party was so ffffff....," *glances down at The Dormouse and The Caterpillar, then back to his friends* "...REAKING awesome!"

They also had a small carnival for the kids and lots of food and handmade items for sale. People were pretty cool to my husband there.

KoH: "Can I go on this ride with my daughter?"

Carnie: "Sure."

KoH: "OK, I just didn't know if I was too big for it."

Carnie: "Hey, as long as yer ass fits in the chair, you can ride."

Sweet, huh?

But I have to say that, like the Rally to Restore Sanity, the best part about it was the people watching.


That and the funny hats.