New strategy… same result

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/10/2018 (2819 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If cute is crummy, then maybe gory will be great.

That’s what kept running through my mind Friday morning in centre court at Kildonan Place Shopping Centre, where I competed in Carving for a Cause, the mall’s annual celebrity pumpkin-carving contest.

Prepare to be impressed, because this marked the 10th straight year I have taken up the butcher knife and done battle in the mall’s gourd throwdown, wherein we media personalities are given an hour to whip up state-of-the-art jack-o’-lanterns in support of our favourite charities.

Every year I carve in support of the Winnipeg Humane Society, and every year I slink out of the mall coated in pumpkin guts, perspiration and the stink of shame.

The problem — and I have given this a lot of thought — is that because I am trying to impress the judging panel and win cash for the humane society, I normally carve a pumpkin that resembles one of my dogs.

Doug’s doggie gourds always draw the same reaction from onlookers, namely: “Awww!”

This year, however, I decided to take a different approach. My goal this year was to create a pumpkin so horrifying that anyone looking directly at it would say something along the lines of: “Eeeeek! Whoever carved this (bad word) monstrosity is seriously disturbed.”

So the day before the contest, I drove to the nearest Halloween pop-up store and obtained the following: a plastic severed hand attached to a lumberjack-style shirt ($8.99); a frighteningly realistic severed bloody foot ($12.99); a huge plastic kitchen cleaver ($12.99); and an entire bag of bloodshot ping-pong eyeballs ($3.99).

The first thing I did Friday was scoop the guts out of my pumpkin, which typically causes me to sweat so profusely that it threatens to flood low-lying boutiques.

This year, however, I was as dry as the proverbial bone during the contest because — and you will find this hard to believe, but it’s completely true — the mall’s general manager, Sandra Hagenaars, agreed to mop my brow with a blue “Shop Happy” bandana throughout the event.

“It was my pleasure,” is how the kind-hearted executive put it when I asked whether she was even remotely disgusted dabbing at my overly damp forehead. “It was an absolute honour to support one of the veterans of this contest. You weren’t lying about sweating a lot, because I have the wet rag to prove it.”

The next thing I did was use my butcher knife to carve out some scary eye sockets and a gaping sawtoothed grin. Then I transformed my pumpkin into “Doug’s Gory Gourd” via the technique of having the severed hand spew out of its mouth, while the severed foot rested to one side, and the kitchen cleaver was embedded in the lid.

The biggest challenge I faced was getting the bloodshot eyeballs to stick in the sockets, which is when one of my competitors, Garth Hilderman from NCI FM, came riding to the rescue.

What Garth did was carve tiny holes in the sides of the plastic eyeballs with a scalpel, then insert toothpicks, which allowed me to stick them into the eye sockets to achieve an alarming googly-eyed effect.

All us media types got $100 for our charities just for competing, but the mall also handed out $100 prizes in six other categories, namely:

1. Cutest pumpkin — won by Now Country 104.7 FM for a snail pumpkin leaving a trail of candy.

2. Best use of embellishments — won by NCI FM for their “Cinder-Hella” pumpkin, a gold gourd carriage with saw-blade wheels, a zombie driver, adorned with a black skull and pulled by a black toy horse.

3. Scariest pumpkin — won by the Filipino Journal for a grisly gourd with bloodied chains and a severed hand spewing from its mouth. “I thought we’d change it up with a little blood this time,” the Journal’s Eric Labaupa said.

4. Top trending pumpkin — won by QX 104 FM for a pumpkin Portage and Main complete with tiny protesters toting “I say no” placards.

5. Most creative pumpkin — won by Energy 106 for its “student loans” jack-o’-lantern with cash spewing from the lid.

6. Cutest dog/doghouse ever — won by KiSS 102.3 FM for a pumpkin doghouse that was accompanied by a real dog, Tiny Tim, a chihuahua mix that was dressed as a hotdog and is an alumnus of the Winnipeg Pet Rescue Shelter. “My life revolves around dogs and finding homes for less fortunate dogs,” KiSS’s Karly Troschuk told me.

So, yes, once again Uncle Doug was shut out of the specialty awards, which prompted me to ask the mall’s affable marketing manager, Corey Quintaine, what he thought of “Doug’s Gory Gourd.”

Here is his exact quote: “I dig it, Doug. It doesn’t scare me as much as the Portage and Main pumpkin. But anything with kitchen utensils is pretty scary, because I’m no good in the kitchen.”

So I’ve got that going for me. The important thing is the mall is posting photos of our jack-o’-lanterns on its Facebook page (facebook.com/ kildonanplace) and the contestant who gets the most likes by 10 p.m. on Halloween night earns another $500 for their charity.

What’s more, the second-highest vote-getter will receive an additional $300 donation; third-highest receives an additional $200. The mall also kicks in 10 cents for every “like” the gourds get on Facebook.

So drop whatever you are doing, kids, and start voting online for “Doug’s Gory Gourd.” Vote like crazy, because I have another kitchen cleaver at home… and this one’s not plastic!

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca