fight.” I said I don’t remember having a fight. Asked her if Jax ever gets mad at her for no reason. She said, “No, he always has a reason.” She said she’s busy tomorrow but why don’t we go bowling on Saturday? With the Mob. I can’t just mope around the house. She’ll organize it. I said OK.
What is wrong with me? Am I in love? Or is it the chlorine? I know it can give you fatigue and asthma and hurt your eyes but I’m not really sure it can melt your brain cells. Although on the other side of Missouri, as Gran would say, they’re always discovering that things everybody thought did one thing actually do something else that’s not exactly a bonus. Pesticides. Prescription drugs. GM foods. Maybe there’s something in chlorine that makes you fall for the first person who comes along. Maybe if it wasn’t Connor I’d be feeling like this about Broccoli Man (oh what a thought – I swear I scare myself sometimes!). OK, not Broccoli Man. Anyone. Like in that play where the queen of the fairies falls in love with this guy with a donkey’s head because she’s been put under a spell. I could be fixated on one of Louie’s dogs. The Curse of Chlorine strikes again!
I know that the trusty sidekick of the Vegetable Avenger should be as crisp as a perfect iceberg, vibrant as red oak leaf and sharp as arugula. But today I was more like a little gem that’s been left at the bottom of the refrigerator with the bendy carrots for a month. So it wasn’t Lethal Lettuce who joined the Vegetable Avenger in his tireless quest for botanical justice, it was Listless Lettuce. Listless Lettuce couldn’t care less if GM seeds take over the earth or if the rivers have so much toxic waste in them that they burn. I’m not saying I’d lost the will to live, but I definitely misplaced it. I could just about remember how happy I was two days ago, but it was starting to look as if I might never be happy again. The day could only have seemed longer if I was on stilts and being forced to listen over and over to “Frosty the Snowman” played on bells. I kept checking my phone to make sure it was working. I thought: This is what death is like. A phone that never rings. Only if you were dead you wouldn’t care. So it’s more like Hell. Hell is when you’re dead, the phone never rings and you care a lot. I don’t know how I got through the day without salting the string beans with my tears. Really. I don’t even remember most of it. People came. People bought. People went. Time crawled along like some small, crippled creature through an ocean of porridge. Ely kept asking me if I was all right, till I finally told him that if he didn’t stop I was going to make soup out of him. The only thing I do remember is that Broccoli Man wouldn’t get out of his car because there were too many people at the stand and I refused to go to him like I usually do. I said to Ely, “You’re the Vegetable Avenger. You go.” Broccoli Man doesn’t really like Ely (it was Ely who told him that first time that we didn’t have any broccoli), but I hadn’t counted on him liking Ely even less when he’s dressed as a carrot. He rolled up his window so quickly that Ely’s fronds got caught, so he was sort of bent over with a basket full of vegetables in his hands. And then Broccoli Man started the engine. The Vegetable Avenger let out a scream never before heard from the lips of a superhero. It was Green Pick-up Guy who yanked open the passenger door and grabbed the key from the ignition. Ely said it was the first time I almost-smiled in two days. I said it was gas.
When I got home, my mother and Zelda were having an argument. (I know, there must’ve been another shower of frogs over Lebanon Road this afternoon to mark such an unusual event. We obviously live in a neighbourhood where cosmic phenomena are practically an everyday occurrence.) From what I could gather, my mother gave the basket Zelda made at day camp a funny look. I went straight to
What is wrong with me? Am I in love? Or is it the chlorine? I know it can give you fatigue and asthma and hurt your eyes but I’m not really sure it can melt your brain cells. Although on the other side of Missouri, as Gran would say, they’re always discovering that things everybody thought did one thing actually do something else that’s not exactly a bonus. Pesticides. Prescription drugs. GM foods. Maybe there’s something in chlorine that makes you fall for the first person who comes along. Maybe if it wasn’t Connor I’d be feeling like this about Broccoli Man (oh what a thought – I swear I scare myself sometimes!). OK, not Broccoli Man. Anyone. Like in that play where the queen of the fairies falls in love with this guy with a donkey’s head because she’s been put under a spell. I could be fixated on one of Louie’s dogs. The Curse of Chlorine strikes again!
I know that the trusty sidekick of the Vegetable Avenger should be as crisp as a perfect iceberg, vibrant as red oak leaf and sharp as arugula. But today I was more like a little gem that’s been left at the bottom of the refrigerator with the bendy carrots for a month. So it wasn’t Lethal Lettuce who joined the Vegetable Avenger in his tireless quest for botanical justice, it was Listless Lettuce. Listless Lettuce couldn’t care less if GM seeds take over the earth or if the rivers have so much toxic waste in them that they burn. I’m not saying I’d lost the will to live, but I definitely misplaced it. I could just about remember how happy I was two days ago, but it was starting to look as if I might never be happy again. The day could only have seemed longer if I was on stilts and being forced to listen over and over to “Frosty the Snowman” played on bells. I kept checking my phone to make sure it was working. I thought: This is what death is like. A phone that never rings. Only if you were dead you wouldn’t care. So it’s more like Hell. Hell is when you’re dead, the phone never rings and you care a lot. I don’t know how I got through the day without salting the string beans with my tears. Really. I don’t even remember most of it. People came. People bought. People went. Time crawled along like some small, crippled creature through an ocean of porridge. Ely kept asking me if I was all right, till I finally told him that if he didn’t stop I was going to make soup out of him. The only thing I do remember is that Broccoli Man wouldn’t get out of his car because there were too many people at the stand and I refused to go to him like I usually do. I said to Ely, “You’re the Vegetable Avenger. You go.” Broccoli Man doesn’t really like Ely (it was Ely who told him that first time that we didn’t have any broccoli), but I hadn’t counted on him liking Ely even less when he’s dressed as a carrot. He rolled up his window so quickly that Ely’s fronds got caught, so he was sort of bent over with a basket full of vegetables in his hands. And then Broccoli Man started the engine. The Vegetable Avenger let out a scream never before heard from the lips of a superhero. It was Green Pick-up Guy who yanked open the passenger door and grabbed the key from the ignition. Ely said it was the first time I almost-smiled in two days. I said it was gas.
When I got home, my mother and Zelda were having an argument. (I know, there must’ve been another shower of frogs over Lebanon Road this afternoon to mark such an unusual event. We obviously live in a neighbourhood where cosmic phenomena are practically an everyday occurrence.) From what I could gather, my mother gave the basket Zelda made at day camp a funny look. I went straight to
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