The Beets

In a small town known as Sedona, just north of nowhere, there lived both a strange and wonderful couple. Freshly free from college, both Jack and Rosemary Halis were aiming to settle down for a nice, peaceful life. However inadequate it made him feel, Jack had decided to marry his wife after she had achieved her Doctorate in Agriculture. Jack, himself, had a measly Masters degree in Bioengineering. Four years older than him, Rosemary and he had met over a debate in one of the labs of the University they attended.

“You cannot use grass to cover the lawn!” Jack had been shouting at the top of his lungs. His second year of graduate school had proved frustrating, for his partner was both a weekend alcoholic and extremely gay. Not that the two are intrinsically related, of course, but it wise to note both, for they did not mix well. Friends since their first year of graduate school, they had decided to try to move in together this semester. It was not working well.

“Grass is what the lawn needs!” His fellow Masters student argued back.

“It will change the pH level of the soil and ruin my beet experiment!” Jack tried again to prove his point. He could not get it through the man’s skull.

“Who cares about beets?”

“I do! You can have your damn lawn when I’m done.” Jack huffed.

“Well do you want the lawn to be full of science, or full of normal objects which increase your already marginal chances of getting laid?” His partner had given up at this point. Jack was rather thick headed.

“I want my experiment to finish. Then you can plant whatever the fuck you want!”

Looking back, Jack should have realized just how anal and stubborn he had been. Instead, Jack simply smiled at how the rest of that day had played out. A beautiful young woman had walked in to the lab amidst their shouting. When there was a moment of sufficient awkward silence, realizing that she had indeed come through the door, and had not been imagined, she interjected simply,

“I think beets are pretty.”

It was then that Jack fell in love. Maybe it was with the way she said beets, or maybe it was the way she winked at him, or that gorgeous smell wafting towards his nose, but in any case, he was head over heels. So head over heels, in fact, that he could not even utter a simple ‘thank you’ of triumph without himself turning beet red.

So fitting then, were the wedding gifts given to the couple, not six months ago when they had been married, but upon moving in to their new home. Freshly back from their honeymoon, and his wife’s doctoral thesis presentation, combined of course, they had just begun to receive mail in their new residence, when they finally received a ‘good luck’ card and an oddly smelling package from said roommate and lab partner.

“Good luck. Enjoy. And I think I owe you these.” Was all it said, hastily signed, “Robbie Matthews”. Below the card that they had just looked at, were several wrapped objects.

The couple glanced at each other, then unwrapped one of the objects together. It was just as they both had expected. With Jack holding the entire box over their heads, the couple shared a kiss under their freshly received beets.

“Well, at least he wasn’t captured by pygmies like we had thought.” Jack offered in the brief comparative silence that followed.

“We really made a lot of jokes when he took that job, didn't we?” Rose laughed at the memory.

“He deserved it. He must be back now, anyway.”

“Why do you say that?” Rose asked as the couple headed back inside. It was Saturday, and Jack had disrupted his wife’s organizing attempts in the new house.

“Because who the hell sends beets from Africa?”

“Not a very convincing argument, you know.”

“Well they’re not very degraded. Now I don’t know too much about postal abilities, but to get beets from Africa, through customs, then to our shit town with them still intact and probably edible...”

“But if he sent them when they weren’t quite ripe yet, they could have…” Rose argued as he held the door open for her.

“Stop, stop, stop!” Jack exclaimed. “Listen to us.”

“You’re right.” Rose agreed. “I love it when you talk nerdy to me.”

“Want to make sure the bed is set up correctly?”

“Again?” Rose asked, hiding a smile.

“We can test the kitchen table, too. You know those earthquakes can get pretty violent, and we don’t want to take cover under something that’s not going to hold up.”

“I always thought that when an earthquake struck, you were supposed to hide in the basement or in a doorway or something.”

“The basement is for bombs. What kind of doctor are you, anyway?”

“I love it when you call me doctor…”

And it is now that we leave the Halis residence, and turn our eyes towards slightly more relevant things.

Next Chapter: Green Tech
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