The story is really about people who grow outsized pumpkins with the goal of being the first to nurture one to the One Ton mark--2,000 pounds. They're apparently getting close to the gardening version of the sub four-minute mile.
Obsessive gardeners armed with champion seeds, lakes of enriched water, hormones, and plant surgery are well on their way to making something that's big, even bigger. Bragging rights, exclusive leather jackets, and a little prize money are all the incentives these people need to keep at it.
There are claims by some gardeners that they can even hear the pumkins grow. And if true, that some of these planted mammouths can gain 50 pounds in a day, then who's to say the unaided ear might not hear something subdividing underneath that orange skin? Sci-Fi week on Turner Movie Classics.
No weight loss programs for these fruits. Just the opposite: more is better. But, as with most things in life, there's nothing that can't be overdone.
One grower remembers coming back from church to find that his biggest pumpkin had exploded under the force of its own growth.
"There was a footlong crack through the rind. It just blew up."
What would Charlie Brown do?
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