a crisis in vegetable
It wasn't that I'd planned for this. I was naiive and inexperienced. I made a mistake. Looking over my tiny plastic greenhouse and the empty seed packages that marked each row, I thought how careless it was of me to plant each and every seed. I didn't think they would all germinate. And now I'm stuck with 20 little pods of cucumber stems, some doubled up, 20 little pods of peppers and 10 pods of cherry tomatoes. My roommate just laughs at me. He takes no responsibility, despite his pressuring me to put them in the windowsill. Put them on the windowsill and walked away.
I feel lost in this little eden of mine, and wonder what Eve would do, had the same thing occurred when she was tempted to eat the forbidden fruit. There she was just trying to get some nourishment when Adam and the snake snuck up behind her and slipped the juicy fruit under her elbow. It was so tasty she didn't even notice the tiny seeds trickling down her stomach and planting themselves into the path she'd intended to walk down. But now there they were sprouting. She'd turn around to Adam but Adam was gone. She couldn't walk around them. Her only options would be to pull them out or to stop and care for them until they'd fully grown and shrivelled away in the winter season. She'd be too old then to walk her path, she'd think.
Then she'd sit down and contemplate what she should do. Her life if she stayed with the little stems. She'd think how in school her teachers were so busy teaching her not to eat the fruit and the high failure rate of bibs that she'd never been taught what to do in case the urge got the better of her. Now her eden had transformed from a careless wonderland into an a world of responsibility. Inflation had risen far more than her income and she could only afford three transplanting pots. She'd have to overcrowd them and they would end up malnourished and brown in colour, not the healthy saplings she'd once imagined. Either that, or she'd have to get two more jobs to afford enough pots. But then who would water them when she wasn't home? And bring them in on cold nights so they wouldn't be sucked into the frost's evil underbelly? Surely, with the inflation problem and her staggering wages, the Kingdom would help her out. But sadly, heaven's idea of help was a cheque not nearly enough to cover apple tree nursery care. Still, working her three jobs, she could go out with her cheque to find any nursery she could afford. Unfortunately she would find none. Their incomes hadn't risen either and apple tree-mending just isn't a lucrative profession anymore. She'd walk home and pass a young woman carrying a basketfull of brown, tiny apples and think maybe the woman once wanted to be a professional apple tree-mender when she found herself making the same mistake as she had. Then she'd walk back to her house and her little garden. She'd put the cheque in the blender, put her elbow on the lid and her fist to her forehead and press the dice button. She'd stare and blend and think how the cheque would have been better spent on beer and popcorn. Really, she'd think, isn't this the same Kingdom that believes she should under no circumstance terminate these stems and yet it can't provide her with a rational strategy to raise them? She'd thought about transplanting them to her middle-class neighbour's garden, but he said even he was having trouble caring for his own garden.
Then she'd pour the mulch over the little stems. At least it made for good compost. She'd sit by the stems outside and try to figure out how to handle this plethora of apple plants. Then protestors would align the path's edge with signs that said "apple killer." Who the hell were these people? Had they ever been faced with such an apple crisis? And wasn't it these same people who supported mowing over an exotic garden half a world away? Sure, save the plants, as long as they're domestic plants. Hypocrits, she'd think.
Now that I think of it I have no idea what Eve would do. But looking down at my little patch of pods in the window sill, still having no idea what I should do with the extra pods, I thought how glad I was they were just plants.
I feel lost in this little eden of mine, and wonder what Eve would do, had the same thing occurred when she was tempted to eat the forbidden fruit. There she was just trying to get some nourishment when Adam and the snake snuck up behind her and slipped the juicy fruit under her elbow. It was so tasty she didn't even notice the tiny seeds trickling down her stomach and planting themselves into the path she'd intended to walk down. But now there they were sprouting. She'd turn around to Adam but Adam was gone. She couldn't walk around them. Her only options would be to pull them out or to stop and care for them until they'd fully grown and shrivelled away in the winter season. She'd be too old then to walk her path, she'd think.
Then she'd sit down and contemplate what she should do. Her life if she stayed with the little stems. She'd think how in school her teachers were so busy teaching her not to eat the fruit and the high failure rate of bibs that she'd never been taught what to do in case the urge got the better of her. Now her eden had transformed from a careless wonderland into an a world of responsibility. Inflation had risen far more than her income and she could only afford three transplanting pots. She'd have to overcrowd them and they would end up malnourished and brown in colour, not the healthy saplings she'd once imagined. Either that, or she'd have to get two more jobs to afford enough pots. But then who would water them when she wasn't home? And bring them in on cold nights so they wouldn't be sucked into the frost's evil underbelly? Surely, with the inflation problem and her staggering wages, the Kingdom would help her out. But sadly, heaven's idea of help was a cheque not nearly enough to cover apple tree nursery care. Still, working her three jobs, she could go out with her cheque to find any nursery she could afford. Unfortunately she would find none. Their incomes hadn't risen either and apple tree-mending just isn't a lucrative profession anymore. She'd walk home and pass a young woman carrying a basketfull of brown, tiny apples and think maybe the woman once wanted to be a professional apple tree-mender when she found herself making the same mistake as she had. Then she'd walk back to her house and her little garden. She'd put the cheque in the blender, put her elbow on the lid and her fist to her forehead and press the dice button. She'd stare and blend and think how the cheque would have been better spent on beer and popcorn. Really, she'd think, isn't this the same Kingdom that believes she should under no circumstance terminate these stems and yet it can't provide her with a rational strategy to raise them? She'd thought about transplanting them to her middle-class neighbour's garden, but he said even he was having trouble caring for his own garden.
Then she'd pour the mulch over the little stems. At least it made for good compost. She'd sit by the stems outside and try to figure out how to handle this plethora of apple plants. Then protestors would align the path's edge with signs that said "apple killer." Who the hell were these people? Had they ever been faced with such an apple crisis? And wasn't it these same people who supported mowing over an exotic garden half a world away? Sure, save the plants, as long as they're domestic plants. Hypocrits, she'd think.
Now that I think of it I have no idea what Eve would do. But looking down at my little patch of pods in the window sill, still having no idea what I should do with the extra pods, I thought how glad I was they were just plants.
posted by Am at 8:27 PM
2 Comments:
That took an unexpected twist. I like this.
hah! Humour writing is difficult to pull off, but you pulled it off just fine.
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