Put a tired, disgruntled, family man from Vermont in a pumpkin patch in Culver City of all places and you have yourself a recipe for all sorts of strange feelings and grumpiness. Yeah, I didn’t attend these abominations as a kid because farms and forests were pretty normal where I grew up and well, we grew pumpkins in our garden. I think about this a lot. I think about my son having to grow up in a city and just how damn hard it is to raise a kid in a cesspool like L.A. For one, outdoor time is limited. It just is. Whereas I could just go outside anytime I wanted as a kid and go exploring in the woods, my own son cannot. It would be disastrous. If he somehow avoided getting hit by a car on Rossmore Avenue, a pedophile would swoop him up toot sweet.

Enter: The Pumpkin Patch. An annual trek to some part of the city for my son to experience some sort of agrarian environs for a couple of hours. A torturous escapade where they don’t serve alcohol and we’re stuck amidst other parents who, to me, seem happy to be there. Maybe they’re idiots, I always think to myself, or maybe I’m just an asshole.

I’m a great dad, but I have my limits. One of them is having to attend any bullshit capitalist grab because “It’s that time of the year.” Yes, most of this shit you just have to suck up but this particular pumpkin patch sparks up my inner anger/depression fire. This is the second year in a row I’ve been to this bullshit place. I protested this year, but still went. Yes, guilt and shame are powerful tools. “Don’t you want your son to experience the fall?” Yes, but not in some fugazi sense where people are lured in to spend money on ridiculous crap. If this place were a drink, it’d be a mocktail. You know what I mean?

Maybe I’m disgruntled because I want my kid to be able to experience some sort of real outdoor life while he’s still young instead of living in this concrete jungle populated by homeless and perverts in every corner. Sigh. I need some nature in my life this weekend…

I’ve taken to wearing darker colored shirts because I’m a slob. We have a rule in the house, “Ye shalt not weareth any clothing with stains, tears, or frays.” Well, not really my rule at all but Jo’s. I see the angle. No one wants to be with a person who walks around with oil or bleach stains and rips in their clothing unless of course it’s intentional. Right? Yes, right about now I’m going to sound like an old, stagnant fart when I say I don’t understand why people spend exorbitant amounts of money on jeans with holes already in them but for some odd reason it’s off limits to own an old, comfy shirt sporting a couple small cigarette burns.

I bring this up because I wore a black shirt to the pumpkin patch because all my white shirts have stains and said black shirt made me sweat like a whore in church as I walked up and down this blight on the earth.

“Mr. Bones Pumpkin Patch” is not only lacking an apostrophe, it is also the most ridiculous, unconscionable money grab I’ve experienced in some time. First off, you have to pay to get in, that’s normal of course, but then you have to pay to go on what they call “the rides.” To add to the frustration, you have to buy tickets and then use the tickets to pay for kids to go into the animal petting area, a slide, or to go play on a bunch of stacked hay bales. Both years I’ve gone to this place I’ve ended up with extra tickets and given them away to parents on their way into this money trap. Listen, I’m not against doing cool activities with my kid, or spending money, but paying for my son to use a big slide, or a blow up bounce pit when I’ve already paid to get in, is preposterous.

Farmer’s mic drop?

Anyway. I’ll never do a bad review of a restaurant or bar because I don’t believe in that, but this place only employs bored high school kids and their time at Mr. Bones is fleeting, so I don’t feel bad shitting all over this place and wish I literally could. It’s like a bad fairground with no good rides or impossible games to win, no funnel cakes, no cotton candy. It’s not even luke warm or cold even, just deplorable and depressing.