Gardener’s choice

The only time I really like to work in the kitchen is during a party when I’m throes of social anxiety disorder and would rather look busy washing very important forks than make small talk.  But last night Zeke decided to steam up some Brussels sprouts and I found myself wanting to work in the kitchen.  (Don’t get me wrong, I love to be in the kitchen, I’d just rather sit on my stool and chat with the cook.)

Z presented me with a question that I suspect only a gardener would spend any time thinking about.  “What do you want to do about the aphids?”, he asked.  In my mind there were two clear options:  Eat Them or Drown Them.  (Either way it didn’t look good for the aphids).  The Eat Them option had a certain self-righteous appeal – “What? It’s extra protein and I ‘m not afraid of a little bug – It’s cool, I eat them all the time.”  Plus the lazy gardener in me thinks a quick rinse of anything is really all that’s necessary.  On the other hand, the Drown Them choice played to my OCD and aphidicidal urge.  Sometimes there’s nothing more relaxing than a little bug killing session.

So I chose death by drowning and after a long Zen meditation at the kitchen sink, we enjoyed sweet, delicious mostly protein-free sprouts.

What I wonder is if other people – you know those other people, if they actually exist, who maybe don’t spend at least 25% of their waking moments either touching plants or thinking about them – would have gotten as much enjoyment as I did out of the aphid question?  Would they have been too skeeved out by the presence of critters to even eat the sprouts at all?  Would they have rinsed them well, end of story?  I guess what it comes down to for me – and maybe this is because it’s the day before Thanksgiving – is that I’m grateful to find enjoyment in certain dirty and simple pleasures of life (gardening) even when it means some stuff must die.

Happy Thanksgiving!