Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Fangs A Lot

They found a new fossil critter, size of a dog, they say, a saber-toothed vegetarian dinosaur. They know it's a vegetarian because it has good vegetable-grinding teeth in the upper jaw, and although they did not find the lower jaw, they expect it matched up. Otherwise, evolutionarily speaking, it wouldn't make any sense at all. It would be like having the top teeth trying to prevent abortions while the bottom teeth cut off funding for the biggest provider of birth control. Totally nutty. The saber teeth are unusual in a plant-eater but not unknown; there are saber-toothed musk deer out there to this day, although they just look confused, like a stringy, wan kid with a death tattoo. This new fossil has really big saber teeth, so the theory is that they used them to fend off rival saber-toothed vegetarians. Or they grew them to impress the ladies. To my mind, this ignores the facts. The facts being that vegetables are wily and treacherous and any animal that can go in for the quick kill is money ahead.

Vegetables are sneaky. Many of them lurk underground. Some are openly cruciferous. Asparagus spears stand erect like a field of punji sticks. We're always on our guard here. I try to stay away from the vegetables as much as possible until they are well and truly subdued, and that's why I married a big strong man, so he can not only bring home the goods but dispatch them before they can do any harm. He stabs the potatoes before they go in the oven. He cuts little crosses in the bottoms of the Brussels sprouts, which not only softens them up but protects us from their vampire ways. Squashes are disemboweled and their guts strewn on the compost pile as a warning to others. Corn is sheared off, like everything else that grows on ears.

It's a dangerous world out there, a world where you can, with all diligence, tie a tiny tomato plant to a stake in the spring; and then you turn your back on it and suddenly it's a rampaging gang of a vine, sending out platoons right and left and threatening the landscape. They're a menace, tomatoes. Last year we did not let our guard down and kept things under control, harvesting our first tomato in mid-October and our second just before Thanksgiving. It wasn't easy. First we had to gin up the whole industrial revolution, suck out all the coal and oil and burn it all up, and rassle our entire climate to its knees. It took everything we had in the way of resources, ingenuity, short-sightedness and greed. We might have been better off going with the saber teeth.

28 comments:

  1. Our tomatoes are raging, but it is the raspberries that have gone feral. Triffid raspberries. Soon they will barricade us in the house, and whip unsuspecting visitors with their supple canes. Oops don't know where that came from but my comment seems to have become sexualised. I will stop while I and the raspberries can.

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  2. A vegetable's greatest weapon is patience. They will wait you out until, finally, they suck the juices from your cold, dead carcass. Even incineration is no shelter for your ashes will only make them greener and meaner. Let's face it "higher" lifeforms, you reap what you sow.

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  3. And let's not even start thinking about what happens with zucchini squash! I've seen them cover more surface than anyone thought possible, and then they head to every office desk in sight. A menace for sure.

    Very inspiring to hear that you lost 15 pounds in a year by just limited yourself to one beer a night. I am convinced I can find those 100-200 daily calories and get on the losing end. (in response to your comment on my blog)

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  4. That's why they put crosses in Brusells sprouts!

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  5. If you stop watering your tomatoes and keep them in full sunshine it forces them ripen faster. Kinda like teaching kids abstinence-only sex ed and getting rid of Planned Parenthood at the same time. I think. You know ... forces them to go to seed faster while exposing them to chlamydia and thereby protect Jesus ... work with me here. I'm making at least as much sense as an elected Republican.

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  6. //vegetables are wily and treacherous//

    ..especially broccoli... a band of bad brawling bruising bastard broccoli stole my bicycle

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  7. If it's true that vegetables are that nefarious (and I believe that they are!), what does that say about the people who exclusively eat them: vegetarians? Elaine

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  8. LOL! I loved this post!
    I noticed you live in Portland - we will be heading to your wet city next week to visit our family. Lucky you!

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  9. Not being disagreeable here, but technically, tomato is a fruit.

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  10. Vegetarians must not be the timid tree-huggers they are made out to be.

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  11. Singer-songwriter, Mason Williams actually wrote a song about the dangers of that fruit (cleverly disguised as a vegetable): Here are the lyrics to "The Tomato Vendetta"

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  12. They SAY it's a fruit, Tenna, but that's just the vast tomato conspiracy trying to soften us up before the big takeover. When one of those vines comes up to your door and asks to have a quick look around for WMDs, slam it in its fat red face.

    Now if you'll pardon me, I'm going to think about the Elephant Child's raspberries for a while.

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  13. Your photograph of erotic tomatoes was chilling. I once dreamed of being lured into the garden by a buxom redhead but never imagined that I was actually being taunted by nefarious fruit.

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  14. I love the witty way you inject politics into a post about vegetables!

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  15. "Openly cruciferous" got me. Still laughing. For less openly, i.e., underground delicacies, those saber teeth could come in handy. Ur truffles? Dandelion roots? (Send him over.) And who's to say they weren't omniverous? I can think of a species we know well that has biters and grinders . . .

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  16. Hilarious. I'm glad somebody finally wrote about tomato plants. They are the ants/rats of the vegetable world. They multiply beyond all reason. And, given enough leeway, they can take over an entire country (like,oh, say, Italy) and make every single food product (including dessert) contain them.

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  17. Thanks for my morning giggle, Murr...I've never contemplated the untrustworthiness of vegetables before. I'll have to be very careful when planting my garden this year...I had tomatoes coming out of every orifice last year...they are truly a delicious menace!

    Wendy

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  18. Forget the tomato conspiracy. We really should consider the possibility of a vast zucchini takeover, and protect ourselves before it's too late. Just look at the numbers! Every fall, they must outnumber us 3 to 1!
    .

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  19. I have some artichoke plants that are beginning to look pretty menacing.

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  20. We planted yellow crookneck squash this year. Now, there's a menacing plant; those babies try to take over your entire landscape. Also, some killer eggplant and...you'll never guess...patchouli. I'm expecting hordes of hippies to show up for grilled veggies.

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  21. Murr, where have you been all my life? I'm delighted to have stumbled across your blog.

    Patricia Lichen, www.patriciaklichen.com

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  22. Nance, patchouli, really? I thought that was sort of mythical. We just used it to cover up other odors, only one of which was pot. I never knew where it came from.

    Paula and co. are right about the zucchinis. It's an old joke, but my sister, who lived in rural Maine, and who didn't even have a key for her house and left her car key in the ignition, said the only time they ever locked the car was in July. Otherwise you'd get a back seat full of zucchini.

    Welcome aboard, Patricia! I'm honored.

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  23. Did you notice that "Patricia's" last name is Lichen? I think the vegetables have sent an infiltrator.

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  24. At last I have discovered my purpose in life! I am the Carnivorous Avenger. I can kill plastic ivy. My black thumb is invincible. Those of you who are overtaken by vegetables, call me in. If I tend them for four days they will wither, yellow, and rot on the vine. Zucchinni fear me. Tomato plants wilt in the nursery as I pass by. If I turn my awesome powers onto dandelions, even those hardy brutes will succumb in time. In my garden, if it doesn't thrive on neglect, it dies!

    I love the saber-tooth cow. I can see it with a full set of ke-bobs, all root vegetables, displaying its prowess to others of its species in complex courtship dances. I can hear the females now. "Look - he's got a potato, three carrots, two parsnips and a turnip, just on the right side! That is so hot!!"

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  25. Unmitigated, a lichen is a symbiotic collusion between an alga and a fungus, as I recall. So you're right. It's JUST like a vegetable to send in an undercover agent.

    And Roxie? If I ever get tired, you're getting the guest-post gig.

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  26. This may be my all-time favorite post. I just never knew. I'll be more careful with my rampaging tomatoes that are currently still confined to 20-gallon pots. Just got have them even if I'm homeless.

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  27. Sometimes I think I miss gardening. And then I sit back in my easy chair and remember what a pain in the ass it was -- the hoeing, the tilling, the planting and watering, the debugging and, of course, the harvesting. It seemed like an awful lot of work just so I could have something to put next to the meat.

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