The Spinach Eaters

An anonymous friend has been persistent in the idea of us girls eating spinach. I assume its to grow big and strong like Popeye, although that myth of spinach making you strong has long been disproven. For the sake of fantasy, this one's for you my spinach eating friend. This is an audience participation story and open to everyone to contribute.

Organic food has recently become a passion of mine. Live healthy and eat what the earth provides without chemicals and pesticides. The price for organics is almost double normal fresh foods, so I decided to get a patch of land and grow my own. Some of my friends were excited by the idea and decided to join me in our new venture. Just call me Farmer Meg.

We found an acre of land for dirt cheap (pun intended) on the outskirts of town in a refurbished industrial sector. The realtor assured me the land was safe but wouldn't tell me what used to be on the property. She skirted the issue and told me dozens of buyers were lined up to buy. I did some digging (again pun intended) to find the previous owner but came up with nothing. All records had been erased and the people I talked to clammed up when I mentioned the location. Sounds fishy but the price is real cheap so I bought it.

We started cultivating the land as soon as the ink was dry on the mortgage. The work was hard but we wanted to do it by hand. A lot of digging to overturn the soil and make it ready for planting. I had exceptional difficulty on the back west side while I was digging and hit solid metal. Frustrated, I kept at it, not knowing at the time I had ruptured buried drums of secret compounds from the previous owners. The liquid seeped into the ground unbeknownst to us and we kept on digging, then planting.

The crops started to grow little by little. The potatoes, carrots and others were just starting to sprout but we were really surprised at the rate the spinach grew. It was ready for harvest in only a few short weeks. We 're not experts and should have known some extra "fertilizer" was in play but we were just so happy to grow our first crop. We worked hard to pick the spinach and celebrated that night with dinner from our own garden.

First course was spinach salad and unfortunately we didn't get beyond that. Seconds after taking a couple bites, a weird sensation came over us. >>