By David Laing (c) May 1995
He took the bait. (At least I thought it was a he. I was still having trouble telling the male mutant cabbages from the female.)
Shhhick! The compressed air driven door of the trap I'd thrown together slid shut. The mutant cabbage, having the IQ of - well - a cabbage, didn't notice and continued to shuffle towards the holographic image of a Self Heating(TM) cheese sandwich (my favourite). For a moment I felt sorry for him (the mutant cabbage). But then, that's the way the cookie gets stomped on and obliterated.
The cabbage lurched through the holographic image. He turned around and wobbled through it again. I turned the hologram off. The cabbage looked puzzled. Then he looked at me. Slowly it dawned on him that he was in a trap, that he was trapped and that he could not escape. He fainted. That suited my purposes admirably.
With all the stealth and agility of an overgrown hippopotamus I slipped into the cage and picked up the cabbage. I then retreated to the laboratory at the other end of the house.
After a few hours analysis maybe I could figure out what the hell had happened when I accidentally caused a thermonuclear meltdown in the coffee urn, and more importantly what I was going to do to stop the mutant vegetables which had emerged from taking over the unsuspecting world.
The cabbage - which was still in my hands - started to come around. I bounced it. It stopped coming around. Once I'd taken an outer leaf sample I looked around for a place to store the unconscious cabbage. I figured it would feel at home in the microwave, so I put it there.
Next I slipped the leaf sample under the analyzing beam of the lab computer. Nothing happened. So I put Laing's first law of electronic devices into action, namely "The quickest and easiest way to fix a malfunctioning piece of electronics is to hit it hard." The monitor came alive with chemical names and diagrams.
"Oh hypodermic syringe!" I thought to myself. Just what I needed. The mutant vegetables were addicted to VIM. Kills 99% of all known germs my sock. Not only were the mutant vegetables going to take over the world, they would cause me to lose my job! I tried to refrain from visualizing my boss's face when he found out that the mutant vegetables that were ransacking his supermarkets for VIM had originated from my house - my kitchen to be more specific.
Suddenly I felt a tugging in my bowels. The world would have to wait; I needed to go for a pee. Naturally that's where it hit me. The place where so many of the great ideas have hit man; in the lavatory. I had to eradicate the mutant vegetables before they managed to escape into the outside world. As two wrongs make a right, the only logical thing to do would be to cause another thermonuclear meltdown in their vicinity - which would mean blowing up the house.
This presented a little problem. Where would I put me while I was blowing up the house?
It hit me like a ton of flowers. The neighbors had insisted that I built my laboratory explosion proof from the inside. Hopefully the converse was also true, or I would be going to see my Great Grandparents a lot sooner than I had expected.
It was time to put that lump of C4 I'd been saving for a rainy day to good use. And get rid of that annoying alarm clock some aunt had given me last Christmas.
Once the bomb was wired up I contemplated how to position the bomb between the vegetables. There came a sudden flurry of knocking from the microwave. It was some cabbage's unlucky day...
Satisfied that the bomb wouldn't fall off the cabbage's back I released it and gave it a little prod towards the door. It wasted no time in hurrying off towards its rendezvous with fate. Realizing that I had the best excuse in the world, I wasted no time getting ready to play a few hands of solitaire.
The explosion that followed rocked the foundations of the house. Actually that was a tad of an understatement, it blew them clean away. I thought it prudent to play a few more hands of solitaire before I went out to survey the scene. That done I opened the door of the laboratory and stepped out into the sunshine.
Scattered amongst the rubble of my house lay the vegetables. Upon closer inspection I discovered that my hypothesis had been correct; the mutant vegetables were now nothing more than ordinary vegetables. They tasted good too.
Standing where once the kitchen had been, munching on a carrot, I contemplated an insurance claim, and more importantly whether I could sell this method of preparing vegetables to some gullible restaurant owner...