Newsroom With A View

A Canadian family rocketed across the internet this past week for something I would have thought only an American family would do.

They posted on Facebook the photos from a family photo session, all wearing … well I guess you have to say they were wearing biodegradable costumes.

They posed on hay bales, and among colorful fallen leaves under a tree, and with a rusty old tricycle.

These could be scenes from anyone’s family photo session – if every member of that family were mostly naked.

Not entirely naked. That actually would have been less remarkable. And I bet the photos would not have spread so far.

No, each member of the family – mother, father, elementary-school-age daughter, and infant child – wore a pumpkin. A real pumpkin.

I don’t use the word “wore” as a euphemism. Each one literally wore a pumpkin that had been hollowed out, with leg holes cut through it at the bottom. (Except for the infant, who was placed inside a pumpkin that had just an opening at the top.)

And that’s all any of them wore, so far as you can tell from the photos. Well, the baby had an orange blanket too, and with his head jutting confusedly from a giant hollow gourd, that photo was funny, as was what appeared to be a candid shot between poses of the young girl and the baby, with the young girl looking cranky.

The rest were varying grades of disturbing.

Particularly one photo of the father lying on his side on top of hay bales, seductively eyeing the camera, evoking the famous Joe Namath nude photo from “Playgirl.”

The mother’s hands were full during this photo session – in each hand she held a hollowed-out top of a small pumpkin, one clutched over each breast.

So many questions came to mind as I reviewed the photos. “Why?” was the least among them. For instance:

The pumpkin leg holes are clearly oversized, so did these people take off the pumpkins after each photo, move to the next place, put them back on and pose? Or did they grab their pumpkin-pants with both hands and waddle over?

Whichever way they did it, who helped the mother keep herself covered? She has only two hands, but alone in the family she requires three pumpkins for each shot.

Did they let the pumpkins dry out before wearing them?

Did they wear underwear?

If not, does pumpkin chafe?

Are they the only people who have worn these pumpkins, or are there more photos like this of other people who at least had the sense not to post them publicly to be shared around the world?

If anyone else wore these pumpkins, did they have to be sanitized before the next family arrived?

How much money would it take for me to get naked and wear a pumpkin?

What would my wife do if she came home and found me in the foyer wearing nothing but a pumpkin and smile?

Actually I ran that last one by my wife, with just a little hope that maybe some fun and games would be in our future.

Instead, she said, “All I can think about is the awful smell of pumpkin! I’m glad I didn’t see those pictures.”

I’m a little tempted to try to get answers to some of the other questions myself, but I’m afraid I’d smell like pumpkin for the rest of the day and my wife would make me sit outside, drawing fruit flies and frightening the neighbors.