Belated October post
Fall is here so it’s officially
pumpkin season. Everywhere you turn there’s something in pumpkin flavor or
scent. The New Yorker even ran a
cartoon at the end of September that featured gasoline pumps with Regular, Super,
Diesel and Pumpkin. I was already planning on having October’s column be on
unexpected products that are pumpkin flavored or scented, so it made sense to
start it off with gasoline. You can blame The
New Yorker for this.
A household
item that’s available in some unusual varieties that could add pumpkin is
mattresses. They already come in charcoal-infused bamboo and there’s an Avocado
brand. I’m not sure if that’s scented or just green. Ditto for the Purple brand
that features eggplant mattress covers. I
don’t know what color or fragrance the Nectar, Mango and Apricot brands are (and
yes, they all exist.) One thing is certain: a Pumpkin brand mattress would be
orange.
In a household with two senior
indoor cats, I’d welcome cat litter in pumpkin scent. I’m not sure my girls
would agree, but I’d be willing to give it a try. Even with pee soaked in, I
expect it would smell better than the name brands we’ve used. A lot of the
time, my cats’ aim shoots over the edge of the litter pan and much of their pee
lands on the newspaper spread outside the pan. I’m not sure if newsprint comes
in a pumpkin-scented option, but I’ve been known to write letters to editors
for causes I believe in. This could be one of them.
We generally use lemon-scented
cleaning products in the litter room and the kitchen. It would be a welcome
change to have pumpkin dish liquid, scouring pads and cleanser. I haven’t seen
any of those in the grocery stores, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see pumpkin Fabuloso
dish liquid at some point this month. Fabuloso comes in about eight fragrances already.
How difficult would it be to add pumpkin?
Before any of my readers panic, I’m
not recommending pumpkin scented or flavored personal care products. No pumpkin
deodorant; no pumpkin toothpaste; no pumpkin shampoo. I’d probably regret this,
but I’d welcome the addition of pumpkin flavor to the Zero Water electrolyte juice
that we drink every morning. Right now there are three flavors that we like.
Having a fourth could provide a welcome change of pace.
I’d take a chance on pumpkin
flavored vitamins, starting with a multi whose RDAs of each vitamin in it would
be competitive with the market leading multi vitamins. Plus I’d suggest adding separate
vitamin A and betacarotene
pills. I’d wait to see how much interest there
is in those first letters before I’d invest in separate supplements of the rest
of the alphabet.
A brand that has ads all over TV
these days gave me another idea. Let’s see some pumpkin scented Skechers Slip-ins!
If it’s too much trouble to do the entire shoe in pumpkin, then just give us
pumpkin-scented Dr. Scholl’s shoe inserts. Howie Mandel could be the
spokesperson to announce the launch.
One of my
final suggestions for pumpkin based products could be a risky one and
that’s vaccination shots. This
certainly seems like a logical pairing. After all, flu shots are the most
common vaccination and they’re usually given during pumpkin season. Also, pumpkin
fragrance could make COVID shots more appealing, helping to prevent a seasonal
pandemic. I wouldn’t recommend these for babies and toddlers, but they would be
worth the R&D expense if they significantly increased the percentage of
adults who get vaccinated during flu season.
Lastly—this
is really an after thought—is a plea directed at a specific company. Those of
you who are fans of Marshmallow Peeps should appreciate this. I’d like to see
pumpkin flavored Peeps at this time of year. You’ll find lots of options for
pumpkins on the packaging, but the Peeps inside are all classic vanilla
marshmallow. Join me in lobbying Just
Born Quality Confections,
the manufacturer, in “birthing” them in pumpkin!
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