First published on October 9, 2009, this classic by Colin Nissan is our most-read article of all time. We’re celebrating the 15th anniversary of this freaky-ass harvest with the brand-new Decorative Gourd Beanie. See below for details!

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I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to get my hands on some fucking gourds and arrange them in a horn-shaped basket on my dining room table. That shit is going to look so seasonal. I’m about to head up to the attic right now to find that wicker fucker, dust it off, and jam it with an insanely ornate assortment of shellacked vegetables. When my guests come over, it’s gonna be like BLAMMO! Check out my shellacked decorative vegetables, assholes. Guess what season it is—fucking fall. There’s a nip in the air and my house is full of mutant fucking squash.

I may even throw some multi-colored leaves into the mix, all haphazard like a crisp October breeze just blew through and fucked that shit up. Then I’m going to get to work on making a beautiful fucking gourd necklace for myself. People are going to be like, “Aren’t those gourds straining your neck?” And I’m just going to thread another gourd onto my necklace without breaking their gaze and quietly reply, “It’s fall, fuckfaces. You’re either ready to reap this freaky-assed harvest or you’re not.”

Carving orange pumpkins sounds like a pretty fitting way to ring in the season. You know what else does? Performing an all-gourd reenactment of an episode of Diff’rent Strokes—specifically the one when Arnold and Dudley experience a disturbing brush with sexual molestation. Well, this shit just got real, didn’t it? Felonies and gourds have one very important commonality: they’re both extremely fucking real. Sorry if that’s upsetting, but I’m not doing you any favors by shielding you from this anymore.

The next thing I’m going to do is carve one of the longer gourds into a perfect replica of the Mayflower as a shout-out to our Pilgrim forefathers. Then I’m going to do lines of blow off its hull with a hooker. Why? Because it’s not summer, it’s not winter, and it’s not spring. Grab a calendar and pull your fucking heads out of your asses; it’s fall, fuckers.

Have you ever been to an Italian deli with salamis hanging from its ceiling? Well, then you’re going to fucking love my house. Just look where you’re walking, or you’ll get KO’d by the gauntlet of misshapen, zucchini-descendant bastards swinging from above. And when you do, you’re going to hear a very loud, very stereotypical Italian laugh coming from me. Consider yourself warned.

For now, all I plan to do is to throw on a flannel shirt, some tattered overalls, and a floppy fucking hat and stand in the middle of a cornfield for a few days. The first crow that tries to land on me is going to get his avian ass bitch-slapped all the way back to summer.

Welcome to autumn, fuckheads!

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Available now in our store, the all-new
Decorative Gourd Beanie:

That’s right, folks; it’s not just about mugs anymore. And if you buy the Quarterly Subscription/Gourd Hat Combo you’ll get the hat for $30 off.

Also, when you sign up to become a member of our Patreon at $10 a month or more, you’ll receive a coupon code (the bigger the contribution, the bigger the coupon code) for a discount on the Gourd Hat and any other gourd merchandise in our store, as well as our upcoming gloriously festive Advent Calendar.

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Read about the editing process of publishing this “Decorative Gourds” over on our Patreon page, and maybe even consider becoming a patron while you’re there?