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By Rumpus EiC and peony enthusiast Alysia Sawchyn
(in homage to McSweeney’s classic decorative gourd season piece)
I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to get my hands on some ugly-ass tomatoes that look like the vegetal equivalent of a Muscovy duck bred during the Chernobyl fallout. It’s 6:30am and 95 degrees (real feel 135), and I am fucking stoked to slip on my Birkenstocks and sweat my ass off biking to the farmers’ market on my refurbished 1937 Schwinn.
Look at these glorious stripy bastards! I feel like Belle twirling around the goddamn marketplace singing about a provincial life except I am fucking contented with my handwoven wicker baskets, courtesy of my polyamorous triad’s most recent date-night activity. Pile those shits on in there. I am going to eat these Black Beauties like I’m a 1960s housewife and they are actual fucking amphetamines.
Please control your feral, organic child and vegan pom-chi-hus-shep-inu; I will clothesline a motherfucker. I am paying $28 per pound to virtue signal my support of local, organic farming; all I have consumed today are chia seeds, lemon water, and positive energy from my quartz point; and you do not want to fucking mess with me. My mantra during sunrise Kundalini yoga is, GO FUCK YOURSELF, MONSATO-LOVING WALMART SHOPPERS, directed at my shitbag neighbors’ kitchen window along with those Mortgage Lifters you are currently blocking with your murder-Birkin bag.
People are going to be like, “What are you going to do with thirty-five pounds of tomatoes?” And I’m going to slowly unwrap my handwoven tote (love you, Willow, thanks again) without breaking their gaze like this is a pay-by-the-minute peep show and quietly reply, “They’re heirloom tomatoes. You are either committed to seed diversity or embracing nature’s puppy mill. You are clubbing baby seals.” Then I’m gonna peal outta there like David fucking Byrne.
Do you like those Instagram posts where bitches have pothos vines growing around their sex swings? Then you’re going to fucking love my house—welcome to Tomato Town, assholes. Think Midsommar meets Victorian. You bet those zucchinis are phallic. This is a sex-positive intentional space, and I invite you to choose a SMEG appliance and velvet throw blanket to assist in your autofellatio simulation. Just watch out for the croquembouches. It’s like Miloš Forman’s Amadeus up in this bitch, but with nightshades. Consider yourself warned.
For now, I’m going to swan over to my bar cart of essential oils and practice breathing through my curled-up tongue. Fuck it’s fucking hot in here. Good thing my linen culottes are breathable and each purchase provides three jade rollers to impoverished communities. Did you hear that Canada’s last intact Arctic shelf just fucking collapsed? We’re going to have tomatoes growing out our assholes soon.
Welcome to eternal summer, fuckheads!
