The little man asked why I had not helped him out sooner. I had no idea what he was talking, and I was rather frightened by his mania. I asked if he was real, or if I may have accidentally came into contact with some harsh paint fumes. He just laughed at my question, believing me to be facetious though I projected a serious tone. I asked him to explain why he had come to me in the night, but before I let him rant, I went to the kitchen to make sure the date, time, and all things in my house were undisturbed and in order, so I would know it wasn't a dream.
The man explained to me that he had evolved from a green bean. I thought this was of course, hard to believe, but the fact is, when a little green man is talking to you, many things become believable. It dawned on me that last week my mother made a stew with potatoes, green beans, and undetermined meat. I asked the man if it was possible my mother didn't cook the food thoroughly.
"Slow down" He said.
"Let me introduce myself before we get too far into details. My name is Gerdro, but the other 'Vegetable People' call me 'The Lean Mean, Rabid, Psycho, Green Bean'."
After hearing his nickname, I decided to refer to him as Gerdro. Gerdro told me he rose from beneath my bed, and I immediately knew how he came into existence. I. Despise. Green Beans. When my mother made stew the other day, I stuck my bowl under the bed and purposefully forgot about it, I would rather not think about green beans, let alone eat them. Now that my first question was answered, Gerdro opened a wider conversation.
He told me of a wise Carrot Man who dwelled in my kitchen, mighty Olive Warriors that have been the only 'Vegetable People' to survive after traveling to the depths of my basement, and the dreaded, Evil Potato in my brother's room, who seeks to destroy all of mankind. It was an odd and surprising story to me, but I knew something had to be done about the guy from Idaho, trying to be a hot potato and all. Gerdro explained the facts of the 'Vegetable People' to me, how long their life spans are, and al details you would want or wouldn't want to know. After two hours of 'Vegetable Speak' I decided it was time to devise a plan for the safety of the 'Vegetable People' and the preservation of mankind.
I put Gerdro in my hand and walked down into the basement to meet The Olive Warriors. During his search on the floor, Gerdro unexpectedly ran into a wild gang of peas. I heard his intimidating nickname, but was still taken back by how much of a scrapper Gerdro really was. He took out ten peas by himself, they may have been smaller, but he was outnumbered. Gerdro battled in a life and death struggle until my dog, Melvin, appeared and ate all ten of the vile pea creatures. After a ten minute search, we found The Olive Warriors, and discussed how we must stop The Evil Potato. The Warriors happily agreed, and we all decided it was time to visit The Wise Carrot.
On our journey to The Carrot, an unsettling feeling of evil lurked over my senses. The Carrot forewarned of danger, and said for a proper resistance and any hope of victory, we must travel far into the backyard to meet The Rotten Pepper Army. We grouped up with Sgt. Pepper and his men, and even convinced a few beetles in the yard to help in our struggle, giving us a sizable force. We created three divisions out of Sgt. Pepper's Army, the beetles, and The Olive Warriors, whom were slowly losing their pimento from all the travel. The plan was a three-pronged attack, much like the one Washington used to drive out the British during the Revolutionary War. As the divine Eater, I named Gerdro General of the 'Vegetable People' and we pushed on.
We made our way towards my brother's room when my companion, Sargent Pepper brought up an interesting question.
"What in tar-nation is this Potato-Bastard's weakness?"
After I waded through the judgement of Sargent Pepper's incoherent and incompetent ways of communication, I figured the question he raised was in fact important. Sargent Pepper explained there was an old worm in my parent's liquor cabinet, and that the worm could give us an extra edge. I wasn't too sure what kind of weakness a potato would have, or what kind of thinking capability a worm held, but either would have to be smarter than Sargent Pepper. To the worm we went.
The worm laid lifeless when I arrived to the cabinet. I figured right then he was dead, and we wasted our time walking back down the stairs to the cabinet. During our travels through the house, I carried our army in a zip-lock bag. We had a few altercations between Gerdro and The Pepper Army, so I had to put Gerdro on my shoulder so he would stop hazing the other troops. Gerdro slid down my arm to check on the worm. He kicked the worm in his third appendage, causing the worm to move and cough. The worm slurred his worms and couldn't seem to wiggle right. The damn thing came out of a bottle of Tequila. Deciding I had already had enough of odd visions between a dumb Pepper Army, some Olive Warriors, and a group of beetles, i killed the drunken worm. A completely wasted worm would do absolutely nothing to help the cause, so I trashed him, took complete control over the operation, and decided the visiting of random oddities around the house were done.
I quickly moved to my brother's room. I was tired and uncomfortable from all of the strange things, making me short-tempered. I searched for The Evil Potato, and sure enough, he sat fat in the closet. He had a group of potato chips with him who escaped from their bag, alongside a very tough cookie, who had a chocolate chip on his shoulder. I knew the battle would be difficult to win. The Potato laughed in a creepy and deep tone, saying nothing.
"What do you hope to accomplish Potato?!" I kind of hollered, since it was late and my family was sleeping.
The Potato gave me no reply, only a loud and evil cackle. The Potato Chips attacked and I let my army loose from their bag. After a four minute skirmish, all of the Potato Chips laid strewn over the shelf, broken both in spirit and physical form. Gerdro destryoed them single-handedly. Just before we began to push to The Potato, my dog, Melvin ran up and chomped the evil underground spud. Melvin bit down as The Potato's blood curdling scream echoed for a few inches. Melvin wasn't done there, he devoured The Potato and then turned and ran through The Olive Warriors and Sargent Pepper's Army with on shame. I didn't know what to do, so I watched in awe.
In an instant, the 'Vegetable People' were decimated, and Gerdro was nowhere to be seen. I began to feel bad as Melvin rolled over on his side, expecting a belly-rub. I realized I wasn't sad at all that these people were gone, I was in fact, glad. It was too weird having those little creepy things all around. But the real reason I rejoiced in their extermination dawned on me. The whole time I traveled with the vegetables I didn't think about the main reason why they sat around under my bed and in the basement long enough to take lively forms. Now that they were gone I remembered why they existed to begin with, it was the same reason I never stepped in to help Gerdro defeat the peas, and why I didn't care that Melvin consumed all of 'The Vegetable People'. I just took a deep breath and quietly reassured myself.
"I hate vegetables."
