The Myth of Wile E

Beans^beans and Zucchini^zucchini

Having followed the whole saga on the news, the un-schooled kids got this great idea to have a seed drive for the newly freed valley. They came bearing peach and plum pits, sticky watermelon seeds, an assortment of dried beans, apple pips, slippery tomato guts, the innards of peppers and squash, sunflower seeds, sprouted sweet potatoes, and onions and garlic and ginger root, which had all reanimated in the dark recesses of someone's refrigerator, and an impaled avocado pit in a glass of water. They brought dried-up flower heads such as marigold and petunia. They had handfuls of jack-o'-lantern guts and cantaloupe guts, which I told them might hopefully cross-breed and make jack-o'-lopes. The kids rolled their eyes and said I really needed to take some un-botany classes.

I told the kids to scatter the seeds all through the clearing, which they did with glee. The kids were like Johnny Appleseed, Johnny Pumpkinseed, and Johnny Pepperseed, planting acres and acres of food for everyone who might be hungry—four-legged or two-legged.

I told them that by next year there'd be more food than any of us could eat, and more than the birds and squirrels could eat, and more than I could ever sell at a farm stand or even give away. And if I left the extra food to rot on the branches it would re-seed itself and the seeds would make even more plants and soon we'd have beans to the beanth power and zucchini to the zucchinith power.

"We're rich! We're rich!" the kids shrieked madly as they ran through the valley, tossing seeds like confetti.

Speaking of rich—the hunting party paid me a visit, too, and would you believe, with their truffle money, they'd bought themselves a brand new trailer? It was big and rounded all over and very chromey. It looked like a cigar-shaped UFO. The family was on their way south for the winter, but I pointed out how great it would be that when they came back in spring, they could park their trailer anywhere they wanted in the valley and no one could ever tell them to move along.

We shared a lunch together of some kind of delicious stew and then I remembered I still had their two Ben Franklins in a Mason jar. So I gave them the two hundred dollars and asked if they'd like to close the account or keep it open, since either way there were no fees. The older girl laughed and said something with her mouth full that sounded like "Crazy gadjay."

The mother shook her head and said, "Na," and something else I couldn't understand.

I looked at the girl questioningly. She explained, "She say, maybe you no gad-jay."

"No?" I said.

"No," said the girl. "She say . . . you okay."

"Oh," I said, and smiled.

The girl added with a grin, "But, you still pretty crazy."