Dear Mr. Pollan,
I am writing to you in the hopes that you can offer some assistance to me regarding a troubling household situation. My wife has been reading your recent book, The Omnivore?s Dilemma, and has allowed herself to become carried away with your admittedly persuasive argument about eating more locally and ethically raised food.
At first it was just little stuff, like buying local produce and banning foodstuffs made with high fructose corn syrup. But then there was the fist-fight at the greenmarket about the sausage that Meg suspected was not humanely made because the woman selling it did not know the names of the pigs that supplied the meat. ?Just one name, you heartless bitch!? she screamed as security escorted her from Union Square. The restraining order prevents Meg?s further presence at the market and I am barely tolerated in her stead.
Lately though, Mr. Pollan, the situation has become much worse. Meg has completely forsaken her marital duties, turning her evening attentions elsewhere. It took me a few weeks to discover what she was up to, but she finally admitted to tending a hayfield in an empty lot in Queens. Oh, didn?t I tell you? Meg has purchased a cow. I don?t know where this cow is located, but his name is Arthur. She?s taking me to meet him before he?s humanely slaughtered so that, and I quote precisely, ?you know where your food comes from for a change?.
After the cow news became widely known in our household, Meg turned our extra bedroom into a hay mow, which mow is the subject of our building?s co-op board meeting next month. An eighth floor resident complained about the conveyor belt chucking bales into the building?s alley and the straw situation in the elevator was getting on everyone?s nerves. I dare not add to the register of complaints by mentioning my acute hay-fever at this point.
The loss of the bedroom was tolerable, but Meg has also planted a garden that takes up half of our living room. One day she just took out the hardwood flooring and replacing it with freshly turned soil. Did you know that you can buy a roto-tiller in Manhattan, Mr. Pollan? Well, I do know, and you can definitely buy a roto-tiller at the Home Depot on 23rd Street in Chelsea for a sum close to what your wife might get at a pawn shop for your wristwatch.
So you can see the predicament I?m in here, Mr. Pollan. Any advice you can offer to this sneezing, watchless, beleaguered soul would be greatly appreciated.
Yours very sincerely,
Jason Kottke
P.S. I hope this letter reaches you in a timely manner. Meg has determined that the USPS uses ethanol-based gasoline in their trucks, so this letter is ?speeding? its way to you via grass-fed horseback. Pray for me.