When Angus Halloway awoke with an itchy backside, he never suspected it was because of a pumpkin.

Well, not because of a pumpkin exactly - it WAS a pumpkin.

“I asked my wife to look and see if there was anything on my ass that would be making it itchy, because it itched way more than usual,” Halloway said. “I dropped trou, and she just started laughing at me.”

Halloway said it took a series of well-placed mirrors and the better part of an hour before he could see why she was laughing so hysterically.

After the initial shock of seeing the pumpkin-shaped, pumpkin-coloured rash wore off, he called his doctor to inquire about the anomoly.

Dr. Bruce Butler, a family physician from St. Thomas, Ontario, examined the rash after asking Halloway to visit his office.

“He was describing this thing over the phone, and I just couldn't believe my ears,” Dr. Butler said. “I didn't know then what is is, and I don't know now, but it is damn funny!”

The rash appears to be a new strain of bacteria that Halloway somehow came into contact with, possibly from a public restroom or a city bus. Photos have been taken and sent to the Canadian Centre for Disease Control to be further analysed, but the results are not expected back until late next week.

Until then, Halloway will make the most of it. Although Dr. Butler has cautioned Halloway that the rash may be highly contagious, Halloway is continuing with plans to go trick-or-treating with his three year-old son, Max.

“I can't let hm down again, not after last year,” he said. “And besides, I don't think I'll ever have a costume as good as this one.

“I thought last year was good, but this is just priceless!”

According to Halloway, he suffered a different but equally mysterious affliction last Halloween; instead of a pumpkin on his ass, he woke up covered in coarse dark hair.

“It was so awesome. I looked exactly like TeenWolf. When I went trick-or-treating I scored bigtime,” Halloway said. “The only problem was that I got more candy than the little one. He was a bit upset about that.”

To ease his child's worries, he had promised that this year there would be no crazy costumes that would overshadow his costume. But now that the pumpkin rash has appeared, Halloway doesn't think he will be able to keep that promise.

Dr. Butler is fairly certain that Disease Control will be able to identify the rash, but is still baffled by Halloway's tendency to fall ill with mysterious diseases around Halloween each year. There have been no other cases like this in the entire history of medicine since physicians started keeping records in 1789.
“He truly is a scientific conundrum,” Dr. Butler said. “In the medical field he has been often compared to the Elephant Man, the Bearded Lady and the Two-headed Lion because people just don't know what's wrong with him.”

Professor Linus, a studying mythologist from the University of Western Ontario believes the strange holiday affliction can be blamed on the Great Pumpkin, although his assertion has yet to be proved in the medical field.

Local health authorities are asking that anyone with information on the Great Pumpkin, or anyone who has experienced a similar rash around Halloween, please call police or health authorities.

All photos of either the Great Pumpkin or the rash can be sent to any tabloid paper for an unproportionately large sum of money.

Disclaimer: Stories printed in the Fanshawe Distorter are in fact fictious. Any resemblance to persons real or dead is unintentional and entirely hilarious.