(Please start reading from 7/18/07)
“Augusta, you must be getting hungry. What would you like?”
“Steak, potatoes, you know, anything fried and greasy.”
“But Augusta, you shouldn’t eat steak and potatoes. They aren’t good for the planet.”
“Why?”
“Steak” (in her lecturing voice) “comes from cows, doesn’t it, Augusta?”
“Yes. What’s wrong with that?”
“Well. Cows are very heavy and when they walk around they squish things. A dust bunny doesn’t have a chance in a cow pasture.”
“Ok, I’ll buy that for the sake of argument. Tell me what’s wrong with potatoes, and tell me what is on the menu.” Augusta shot back, getting really irritated with crazy Dusty.
“Potatoes are the worst. In order to harvest potatoes they need to be dug up, and that disturbs the entire ecosystem.” Dusty knew she was making this up and hoped that Augusta wouldn’t challenge her on this.
“But what about the dust bunnies who have been inadvertently buried and now are resurrected by the digging for the potato. Doesn’t that even things up a bit.”
Augusta was sounding like Softy now with the way he was playing along. In fact, Softy, who was intently listening in on this entire conversation from the other world, smiled when he heard Augusta’s comeback. Dusty recognized this similarity and rather than seeing Augusta now as an antagonist he seemed more like Softy, part her soul mate and part diety.
“So . . . the menu. What is on the menu?”
“Oh,” replied Dusty, “I have canned vegetables and cereal. I only shop once a year so I need to get food that will keep.”
“I like peas and corn,” Augusta said, thinking he could stomach cold canned peas and corn.
“I don’t buy peas, Augusta.”
“Why is that, may I ask?”
“When peas are shelled they throw the shells on the ground. That unnecessarily covers up all kinds of good creatures. Not good,” Dusty expounded.
“And corn?” Augusta was beginning to realize that his choices were very limited and that he’d starve to death playing this guessing game.
“Corn is the worst. Besides wiping out the entire Mayan civilization by rotting their teeth, they store corn in silos. Not good at all.”
Augusta couldn’t imagine the problems with silos. “Why?”
“Well, the corn in the silos produce methane, and the methane is used now for cars. And most drivers couldn’t care less for dust bunnies and they just mow them down like there is no tomorrow. Corn, it is a disaster.”
“Ok, Dusty, just bring me whatever you have and I’ll pretend it was what I ordered.”
“Alright. But don’t complain if you don’t like it. Remember. I gave you a chance to choose what you wanted.”
