‘Tis the season of pumpkins. For the next few days, a pumpkin will be in every corner of your sight at every moment. It may not always be in the form of a round, orange plant; it may be in the Starbucks latte that a girl with ironically dorky glasses orders, or the pumpkin-quality of the burnt orange sweater she’s wearing with black leggings and UGG boots.

Side note, I’m in the Union and I just heard three girls in a row order a pumpkin spiced latte. Once again, ‘tis the season.

Pumpkin fever may also come in the form of a delicious pie. Another side note, is it actually pumpkin pie if you can see the pie through the whipped cream? The answer is no.

It, too, will be in the form of fake pumpkins, plastic pumpkins, candy pumpkins, painted pumpkins and any kind of pumpkin you want. What is it with pumpkins this time of year?

For four weeks out of the year you can’t get rid pumpkins, and the other 48 weeks of the year they are nowhere to be found.

But, to me, the most confusing use of pumpkins around this time is jack-o-lanterns. Why do we take perfectly good pumpkins and carve them up to only see them be shriveled away by Nov. 5th? (Actually, when I was in seventh grade I saw a shriveled pumpkin that looked exactly like one my teachers; it was a little disturbing.) Because of this curiosity, I looked up the history of the jack-o-lantern.

Originally, in Ireland the practice was used with turnips and potatoes, but once they came to America they adopted the pumpkin.

As legend tells, when a man named Jack died, God didn’t want him and neither did the devil. Jack was given a piece of coal and he put it in a turnip to light his way; he still roams the earth to this day. The people of Ireland started making their own jack-o-lanterns by carving faces into turnips and putting them in their windows or near doors to frighten Jack away, according to the tale. Sounds a little far-fetched to me, but then again so does Halloween.

Fast-forward to present day, and the whole pumpkin craze has brought me this conclusion:  leave the pumpkins alone and stop carving out jack-o-lanterns. Jack-o-lanterns don’t even make sense; they serve no purpose other than decoration, and they’ll only last a few weeks at the most. You are wasting great pumpkin pie ingredients for a few weeks of decoration that absolutely no one cares about.

Also, if you make jack-o-lanterns, don’t paint on them or use stencils for your design. Make it yourself like it was originally intended. The rest of the world already thinks we are lazy, let’s not try to add to it. Likewise, if you really want to get into the Halloween spirit, then go get a turnip. No one likes turnips anyway. Besides, the Irish were using them as “decoration” in order to scare away Jack.

Along with this carving process, I have heard that some people, when they take the seeds out of the pumpkin, cook them. This sounds gross and unsanitary. You just scooped out all of those seeds with your hands, which are probably riddled with germs! Also, how can you eat them when you just saw all the gunk they came out of. Whenever my parents forced me to make jack-o-lanterns with the family, I always had to put gloves on and use big spoons to scoop everything out. It is hard to get all the gunk out, therefore, I think it serves a better purpose staying inside the pumpkin.

This nonsensical practice of jack-o-lanterns make me want to leave America for these few weeks so I will be rid of them. I urge you to give up this ritual that our society has grown so accustomed to. Mostly because I really want more pumpkin pie.