1. Set your alarm for 6:00 a.m. the night before. You want to be first in line for the perfect pumpkin.

2. When your alarm goes off, ask yourself what the hell you were thinking. It’s not like they’re going to run out of pumpkins. Snooze until ten.

3. Put on your newly purchased cute fall outfit: a flannel shirt, light wash jeans, suede boots from Costco, and a wide-brimmed felt hat from Temu that feels like an itchy vice around your head.

4. Look up a video for how to French braid your hair. How hard can it be to look exactly like Taylor Swift on the Evermore album cover?

5. Fifteen sweaty minutes later, examine your handiwork while you shake out a cramp. Your hair should look like an abandoned opossum den.

6. Look at the time and panic. Time to hit the road. You don’t want to miss your perfect pumpkin, and you still have to stop for fall-themed coffee.

7. Pull into the Starbucks drive-thru. There should be fourteen cars ahead of you. Put your car in reverse to bail on this just as another car pulls in behind you. You are now stuck. Take a deep breath, and remember there are lots of pumpkins. You’ll be fine!

8. Order the most festive item on the menu with almond milk and feel bad about the rainforest. Let go of your annoyance that your total is almost ten dollars for a single beverage.

9. Sit in drive-thru purgatory. Is that a rain cloud? No. It’s supposed to be sunny all day. Feel the sweat pooling on your forehead from the Temu hat. What the hell is this thing made of anyway? Steel wool?

10. Finally acquire your coffee and tip generously. It’s time for pumpkins.

11. Put the address for the pumpkin patch into your GPS. Shit, is it really an eighty-seven-minute drive?!

12. Sip your coffee as you pull onto the freeway. It was definitely not made with almond milk. Regret tipping.

13. Take the exit towards the pumpkin patch. It’s an autumnal paradise. There are beautiful rolling hills dotted with gold trees. Roll down your window and inhale the crisp, fresh air.

14. Roll up your window and lock your doors as you pass several enormous yard signs advising that the 2020 election was stolen, locals shoot trespassers in lieu of calling 911, and you are going to hell unless you let Jesus into your heart today.

15. Pull into Sunshine Family Farms. It should now be pouring rain, and the only parking spot available is a half mile away down a dirt road.

16. Trudge through the mud to the farm stand, ruining your suede boots. Your flannel shirt should now smell like a wet Labrador retriever.

17. Ask the cashier, a teen in a MAGA hat who is smirking at your bad French braid, where the pumpkins are. She points down another dirt path teeming with small children and asks if you want to take the hayride for $15. This sounds better than another walk in the mud. Pay for the hayride and discover there is a $4 surcharge for using a credit card.

18. Climb into a flatbed truck, where you are then jostled on a wet bale of hay for ten minutes. Feel the seat of your jeans completely soaked through. Try to ignore the dairy-induced stomach cramps that get exponentially worse with each jostle. This pumpkin better be god damn fucking perfect.

19. Arrive at the pumpkin patch. There are approximately seven pumpkins remaining, and you are outnumbered by grade schoolers.

20. There it is: the perfect pumpkin. Its breathtaking orange hue almost glows from within. Pick it up by its stem and bask in its harvest glory.

21. The stem is full of splinters and snaps off in your hand. The pumpkin falls on your boot and explodes, revealing a rotten interior full of mold and bugs. Scream, then chuck the stem away like it bit you. Vigorously rub your hands on your jeans, leaving brown streaks on the light denim.

22. Breathe. It’s okay. That was not your perfect pumpkin.

23. There it is: the perfect pumpkin. It’s breathtaking orange, and… crap, a seven-year-old is making a beeline for it. Grab it before they get their sticky little mitts on it. Run away from their dad, who’s yelling at you. Forget the hayride—you can make it on foot.

24. Trip and fall in the mud because you are trying to carry a slippery twelve-pound pumpkin in the rain. Take off your shitty, ruined Temu hat and use it as a sling to schlep the mud-encrusted gourd the rest of the walk back. Pay the cashier $27 for the pumpkin and a jar of homemade jam that you buy only because buying two things makes this ordeal feel more worthwhile. There is a $4 surcharge for using a credit card.

25. On the drive home, examine your perfect pumpkin. There is a large divot on the side of it where something has tried to burrow a hole, and it is covered with small bumps like a rash. It is, objectively, hideous.

26. Five minutes from your house, you can no longer ignore the alarm bells in your stomach. Pull into the closest grocery store. Out front, there should be a sign next to two enormous, full bins: Pumpkins, $4.99.