10 Ways to Avoid Confusing your Jack-o-Lantern with Donald Trump

1) Make sure a responsible adult is involved in its creation

2) Carve a small mouth, or better yet, none at all

3) Keep it on a stable, balanced platform

4) Buy it a well-cut suit

5) Display it by a window inside so it doesn’t surround itself with rats

6) Actually enjoy its hollowness with a lit candle inside

7) Serve it a medium rare steak

8) Encourage the children to look at it

9) Recall how it all started, when a newspaper was enough to contain the mess

10) If you’re still not sure, don’t take any chances: remove it in early November, before it becomes a crumbling, festering ball of rot that stinks up the whole world while caving in on itself



Tara Campbell is a writer, teacher, Kimbilio Fellow, and fiction editor at Barrelhouse. Previous publication credits include SmokeLong Quarterly, Masters Review, Jellyfish Review, Booth, Strange Horizons, and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. She’s the author of a novel, TreeVolution, and three collections: Circe’s Bicycle, Midnight at the Organporium, and Political AF: A Rage Collection.

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