The problem with a clear, sparkling, golden October day is the pressure to go outside. We heard the news report — “This could be the last sunny day; snow due Thursday” — but the week had been long, the sofa soft, and inertia is always seductive. Finally, resigned to our socialization that fresh air is “good for you,” we dragged ourselves to the stack of newspapers and rifled through lists of outdoor activities, settling on a pumpkin farm close to home — we could get there, buy the apple spice doughnuts, admire the bucolic tableau, and get back in time for a nap.

So we drove to the northern suburbs, to a field framed by a small corn and pumpkin patch, a grassy parking lot packed with minivans and two strip malls. It may have been a farm once, but now it was a carnival, a Halloween amusement park, sprouting up from nothing in the middle of nowhere, as if Jack had planted too many magic beans too close together. Piles of pumpkins leaned against scarecrow character placards with cut-outs where the faces should be. A “Spooky Hut” sold ghoulish costumes and decorations. Rides included a tea cup whirly gig with seats tucked in the maw of shining jack-o-lanterns and masked bears, a giant slide with flags, and many inflated jumping apparatuses, one in the shape of a forest in which children climbed in through branches and belched out from the lower trunks. Face painting booths every five feet, farm animals in pens painted like sets in a school pageant, a horse and a tractor hayride. I was so grateful that the festooned stage remained empty during our visit; I doubted I could have endured orange and black clad dancers singing “Silent night, scary night.”

I am not a Halloween humbug. I love a good gypsy costume and mini Snickers bars. I have seen all of Tim Burton’s movies. I do not think begging at doors in honor of long ago pagan beliefs will endanger my children’s spirituality. But I was overwhelmed by the forced frivolity of this Halloween spooktacular. I felt like I was at one of those obligation birthday parties for the kid that no one really likes but has money so you go for the pony rides. I felt a little guilty. Were we the only family not having a screaming good time? Laughing, yes, but tarantula-shaped gummies and irony only go so far.

As we turned a corner (the “patch” was not big, but so crowded with attractions and people, you could not see far in front of you), we found a pen structure, one of the few undecorated areas on the farm with hay sprinkled on the dirt floor and a sign that said “Petting Zoo.” We stopped and hung on the fence, watching. In all the garish color and excitement, this space felt peaceful, a handful of children mixed among many tiny goats, a sleeping rabbit, a potbellied pig, lambs and a few chickens.  Whether we gave into fate or were simply making the best of things, this seemed where we were meant to be. Children and animals frolicking together, it would be a true farm experience. My transplanted urban children and I leaned forward, relieved at having discovered a refuge from the perceived artificially of this suburban construct.  In a snow globe of holiday frenzy, we at last recognized this square of reality, “a pen of reality,” as my son dubbed the scene.  

One boy stood beside each animal and petted with exaggerated fervor, raising his hand far above his own head, swooping down and rubbing hard along the back from head to tail, ending with a flourish, hand waving up in the air. Then running to the next animal, he repeated this, over and over, pushing a little harder each time.

A girl with a Cindy Lou Who pony tail sticking straight up from the top of her head carefully poured food on her hand and fed each animal with perfect patience. Calm, smiling wide, almost eerily still as the animals tenderly ate, she moved only when they had finished what was on her hand. Pouring more, she fed another.

Another girl also put food on her hand, tentatively offering it to one of the goats and then as the animal bent its head, she slowly pulled her hand back, not allowing the goat to eat. Going to the next animal she offered again, and pulled back again, several minutes and animals later, she was holding the same handful of food, a set, blank expression on her face.

Another child kept the food in the Dixie cup and simply shoved the cup on each animal’s muzzle. The animals would vainly attempt to lick the bottom and after a while the child would take it off and look in, confused that there was the same amount of food. Her mother tried to take a picture, but the child nudged her away, pushing the cup deeper on another nose, concentration furrowing her forehead.

Several children were trying to wake the bunny, a large fur mass jammed up against the wall. Unsuccessful, they started chasing the chickens. The pig wandered in and among the more popular miniature goats, strangely ignored, while one of the mothers encouraged from the sidelines, “Pet the pig, pet the pig.”

Another girl idly watched as a goat ate her pants. Not jerking away, not giggling, her eyes serene, as if goats chewed on her pink cammo print pants on a regular basis.

At one point an employee stepped in and for no apparent reason grabbed one of the lambs by the back like a handbag, roughly picked it up and threw it in a nearby truck. None of the children seem to notice.

One child seemed to be wearing a pillowcase, although upon scrutiny it seemed she was wearing an oversized football jersey, so long she could barely walk without tripping. Her father was on the cell phone asking “What’s the score, now?” as she lurched toward a group of goats.

One child was simply watching everything going on around him, avoiding contact with the animals, vaguely reaching in his cup and nibbling the goat chow himself. 

We were entranced by these tiny distillations of humanity in the petting zoo, but it seemed to us that our “pen of reality” was starting to feel a little too real.  What was becoming truly spooky in all the faux spookiness was how un-children-like these children actually behaved. In each interaction was a glimpse of the adults they would become and the world they would inhabit. There was nothing pretend about who were willing to share with goats, who reacted to strange creatures with sensitivity and awareness and who wanted to dominate or control.  Although stripped of costumes and fanciful projections, the zoo was not a respite from the mayhem, curiously, it gave clues to the source.  Telescoping the everthing that surrounded it, our pen was just a bunch of people stuck in a place they only sort of wanted to be. 

My sons and I speculated which child we identified with the most.  How would we have fed the goats? And how did the children we observed reflect their parents?  My sons looked at me knowingly and we changed the subject, wondering what they sold in the farm store. 

We bought doughnuts and pie and sweet tart bats.  After the children and the goats, the whole extravaganza did not seem quite as ridiculous. The pen had perhaps explained or connected us with the masses.  We had all driven there, compelled to have fun there, and found a bit of ourselves there, simply because it was the last sunny day of the season.