Pumpkin Rip Off?

I’ve got no interest in Halloween, but really don’t care if anyone else wants to celebrate it.

I saw these pumpkins down at Woolies the other day and wondered if the flesh of this particular type of pumpkin any good for eating or is it just thrown away after you carve the shell?

lobster said :

I have never actually celebrated halloween. But I see no drama in letting people do it.

I see the danger in allowing corporations to invent another useless retailing holiday. In another generation it will be socially unacceptable not to participate. Then you will be pressured into buying useless trinkets and sweets for snot-nosed beggars who interrupt your evening. And should you choose not to participate, the sugar-addicted teenagers will retaliate by egging and toilet-papering your house; that’s what happens in the USA to “kill-joys” who don’t see the “fun” in gifting $100s worth of treats to their neighbours kids every year.

We’ve already got Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Valentines, Easter, New Year, Christmas, and apparently even Thanksgiving is gaining traction (why?), so we damn well don’t need Halloween as well. Can’t we just celebrate these holidays without being pressured into spending money on useless retail crap?

American or British is probably less important than the supermarkets’ need to make money between father’s day and Christmas

Waiting For Godot said :

I suppose after the unsold Halloween pumpkins are taken off to land fill they’ll be replaced with Thanksgiving Day turkeys.

Or perhaps to replace the Canadian expats’ Thanksgiving turkeys?

The prices of those pumpkins have been going up the whole month of October….I have a feeling they’re going to peak right around January….

I suppose after the unsold Halloween pumpkins are taken off to land fill they’ll be replaced with Thanksgiving Day turkeys.

lobster said :

“I’m so cool. I pay out Halloween every chance I get because it makes me feel better than Americans!”

I really don’t see a problem with it. The same hatred isn’t served out to people who celebrate Oktoberfest or Christmas in July.
Why the hate for Halloween?
If you are a kid – you get lollies
If you are a young adult female – you get to dress skanky
If you are a young adult male – you get to look at girls dressed up in very little clothing.

I have never actually celebrated halloween. But I see no drama in letting people do it.

And it gives crotchety old men the chance to instill the delights of bitter licorice on unsuspecting brats

Those aren’t any old pumpkins, though. The varieties most common in this part of the world are the Jap, Kent and Queensland Blue, none of which are orange, and most of which can be had whole for less than five dollars.

But since popular Halloween culture depicts pumpkins as orange fruits, though, it makes sense for retailers to sell these weird orange ones for inflated prices to any schmuck who thinks that is the proper colour for a Halloween pumpkin. Since they’re not likely to be used as food, they’re purely a luxury item, and IMHO they should attract GST too, because we all have the right to profit from wealthy ignoramuses’ largesse!

lobster, the latter two points you make can be observed in the City from Thursday through Saturday nights all year.

lobster said :

“I’m so cool. I pay out Halloween every chance I get because it makes me feel better than Americans!”

I really don’t see a problem with it.

If you are a young adult female – you get to dress skanky

I like it when the skanky mums also dress up to escort the little kiddies around from house to house to make sure no whacko perverts try and fiddle with them. Some very good vantage points near my house, but this year, I’ll be answering the door to any little trick or treaters in my ghoul costume and plan to frighten seven shades of crap out of them…..then give them lollies and wink at thier mums!

“I’m so cool. I pay out Halloween every chance I get because it makes me feel better than Americans!”

I really don’t see a problem with it. The same hatred isn’t served out to people who celebrate Oktoberfest or Christmas in July.
Why the hate for Halloween?
If you are a kid – you get lollies
If you are a young adult female – you get to dress skanky
If you are a young adult male – you get to look at girls dressed up in very little clothing.

I have never actually celebrated halloween. But I see no drama in letting people do it.

irrespective of its cultural roots – it is certainly marketed as being american as apple pie [and one wonders where apples were first so baked (perhaps and probably even pre-chaucer, whence hail recipes) – the real crux of the matter is that it is a seasonal celebration, which if we were to observe it we’d be doing so in april…

Wow an extra $4, easily attributed to transport costs. I’m sure if you went to other state capitals you would also see a price difference.

If you’re stupid enough to partake in the american tradition, expect to be effected by the law of supply and demand, where prices rise because of the demand from the few idiots in this country.

Halloween’s been round longer than America has.

And it’s not like there’s a market the rest of the year for the things – why shouldn’t they (being anyone who wants to grow, import or sell them) charge what they can get for them? They’re hardly one of life’s necessity’s, venerability of occasion notwithstanding.

Why not grow them yourself if the cost of buying them frets you so? If they’re anything like chokos you’ll be kneedeep in them next year if you chuck this year’s remnants on a compost heap

🙂

shirty_bear said :

Maybe this should be titled “What’s this bollocks doing here at all?”

Anyone so keen to buy into this overt Americanism deserves to get ripped off. The retail sector has been pushing Halloween for a while now, with seemingly little success. Hopefully it stays that way.

There must be some degree of success. Halloween shit has been increasing for quite a while now. Every year the floorspace devoted to Halloween gets bigger and bigger in the shops.

trickyxr said :

Halloween is a rip off all together. American tradition not a Australian tradition Just another way to reep the cash.

Unfortunately for us, this isn’t the case. Halloween relates to All Hallow’s Day (whatever that is), and comes from the British Isles somewhere. Even dressing up and Trick or Treat has non-American roots. Ever ethically chained to truth in emotional abuse, I was crushed at having to surrender the opportunity to sneer witheringly at all those excited little upturned and amusingly masked faces while I smugly derided them all as brainwashed running dog paper tiger lackeys of Uncle Sam’s cultural imperialst war machine….

My understanding is that whilst a lot of the trappings of the contemporary and largely secular Halloween thing draw on the north American experience, as far as ‘tradition’ goes it’s actually an ancient British festival. It’s the Celtic new year (or somthing similar) and corresponds with All Hallows Eve the divide between the longer summer days and shorther days of the winter months (in the northern hemisphere).

Pptvb – nice profits for the retailer, I wonder how far up the supply chain that money goes?

shirty_bear said :

Maybe this should be titled “What’s this bollocks doing here at all?”

Anyone so keen to buy into this overt Americanism deserves to get ripped off. The retail sector has been pushing Halloween for a while now, with seemingly little success. Hopefully it stays that way.

This

Rule One: Do not buy vegetables at a supermarket.

Rule Two: Out of season produce will be sold for a premium

Up in Brisbane, the price was $20.

Well, they didn’t walk down here by themselves did they – though if they were real Jack’o’lanterns then they could have.

Hallo Who ???

pptvb said :

$24 = nice profits all along the supply chain.

But these are not your regular garden variety pumpkins – they’re proper Halloween Pumpkins. I’d suggest that the large American contingent here in Canberra explains the price difference.

Honestly, if you’re dumb enough to be suckered into yet another imported commercialised festive event, you deserve to pay through the nose.

Oh my god, that’s a 20% price increase. I demand a royal commission!

Maybe this should be titled “What’s this bollocks doing here at all?”

Anyone so keen to buy into this overt Americanism deserves to get ripped off. The retail sector has been pushing Halloween for a while now, with seemingly little success. Hopefully it stays that way.

Halloween, WASSAT?????

Halloween is a rip off all together. American tradition not a Australian tradition Just another way to reep the cash.

A friend of mine was telling me a few years ago about how hard a job it is harvesting pumpkins. On their farm, near Gooloogong, it was all done by hand.
Back-breaking work when they were only getting $0.03 per kilo!
$24 = nice profits all along the supply chain.