Yeah. Who buys a pumpkin for it’s literal value as a food item? There’s canned pumpkin for that. Anything to do with buying a whole pumpkin is all about maintaining an experience and tradition. In that view, pumpkin carving a storebought pumpkin is the base experience, and going to the pumpkin patch is the extended experience. People can choose the level that matches their enthusiasm for fall festivities. Neither purchases are practical, but both can be worthwhile.

I don’t see this as much different as the buying a CD vs concert ticket mockery. Concert tickets are always economically an impractical purchase vs buying a copy. People don’t go to concerts to get a good deal, and there’s just as much crap to deal with as the muddy parking lot and unsocialized animals of a pumpkin patch. People go to concerts for a specific experience that brings them joy and forms memories. Mocking that desire is silly.

What do you have against owls?

https://archive.ph/KjLD4

Archive link of the original star tribune article.