Lustful Cockweed
Oct. 23rd, 2014 01:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vulgarweedA Reminiscence of a Country Childhood, Ruined By Lewd Rogue Flora
[This was inspired by last weekend's madness in the @antidiogenes chatroom, when the Sherlock fandom's Lustful Cock Monster meme infected everyone's brains – like toxoplasmosis supposedly does to cat employees – and reduced us all to such giggle fits we were all changing our usernames to variations on that theme for a while. This bit of original fiction has nothing to do with Sherlock and everything to do with being The Author Formerly Briefly Known as Lustful_Cockweed]
* * *
Lustful Cockweed is a serious problem. Like many rural American kids, I was in 4-H in my youth, and and I wanted to try the future-farmer workbook exercises, and maybe even compete. I knew I was too soft-hearted to raise lambs for sale, and my parents would never stand for it (being even more soft-hearted than me), so I took the strawberry patch option.
We had acres of land that weren't being used, because most of them were vertical. I did finally manage to find a half-flat spot with a decent combination of sun and shade (down a sharp little grade off the flat part of the yard, but not yet where the downhill got truly steep and the tree canopy shut out sun altogether) and there I planted my strawberries.
They were my pride. I checked on them in the morning before the school bus came, and in the evening when the school bus brought me back. On weekends I was out there all day as long as it was cloudy enough that I wouldn't get sunburnt. (Busily reading The Lord of the Rings, not actually working, but I was convinced the strawberry plants benefited from my presence.)
Then they got the Lustful Cockweed invasion. I know, I know, it's a funny name, but you do not want Lustful Cockweed in your garden. The worst thing about Lustful Cockweed is that you really, really should not pull it. That's what it wants. You pull and you pull and you pull, and the next thing you know, it's shooting its seeds everywhere out the tip.
(Some people think a 12-year-old girl shouldn't be exposed to this – but c'mon, I grew up around farm animals. And Appalachian farmboys, which is pretty much the same thing.)
This was the early 1980s, and it was whispered around that there was really only one way to get rid of Lustful Cockweed. You had to draw a lot of pictures of President Reagan naked, and put them up on little stakes made of popsicle sticks right by every single Lustful Cockweed plant. That was the only way to make them wilt.
I tried, I really did – but talk about a case of the cure being worse than the disease. I only managed a few renditions of Reagan peen before I just gave up. I got a half-decent crop of strawberries that year – but they were smaller and not as sweet as they should have been, what with the Lustful Cockweed sucking up all the good stuff out of the soil.
I didn't do 4-H much after that. When I turned 13, I discovered heavy metal and masturbation, so those were my hobbies that year. I joined the school marching band. My former strawberry patch still had some strawberries in later years (now going feral), and the Lustful Cockweed took over for a little while since I wasn't drawing Naked Reagan anymore. (No, I don’t know how those Lustful Cockweed seed stalks wound up in my bedroom, I swear.)
My parents sold that old house and moved out just a few years ago. I took one last walk there, and saw no trace of either strawberries OR Lustful Cockweed.
It moves in mysterious ways. You never know when and where it will pop up (ahem). And when it does, it's relentless. Until it isn't anymore.
***
Watch your garden. Constant vigilance!
[This was inspired by last weekend's madness in the @antidiogenes chatroom, when the Sherlock fandom's Lustful Cock Monster meme infected everyone's brains – like toxoplasmosis supposedly does to cat employees – and reduced us all to such giggle fits we were all changing our usernames to variations on that theme for a while. This bit of original fiction has nothing to do with Sherlock and everything to do with being The Author Formerly Briefly Known as Lustful_Cockweed]
* * *
Lustful Cockweed is a serious problem. Like many rural American kids, I was in 4-H in my youth, and and I wanted to try the future-farmer workbook exercises, and maybe even compete. I knew I was too soft-hearted to raise lambs for sale, and my parents would never stand for it (being even more soft-hearted than me), so I took the strawberry patch option.
We had acres of land that weren't being used, because most of them were vertical. I did finally manage to find a half-flat spot with a decent combination of sun and shade (down a sharp little grade off the flat part of the yard, but not yet where the downhill got truly steep and the tree canopy shut out sun altogether) and there I planted my strawberries.
They were my pride. I checked on them in the morning before the school bus came, and in the evening when the school bus brought me back. On weekends I was out there all day as long as it was cloudy enough that I wouldn't get sunburnt. (Busily reading The Lord of the Rings, not actually working, but I was convinced the strawberry plants benefited from my presence.)
Then they got the Lustful Cockweed invasion. I know, I know, it's a funny name, but you do not want Lustful Cockweed in your garden. The worst thing about Lustful Cockweed is that you really, really should not pull it. That's what it wants. You pull and you pull and you pull, and the next thing you know, it's shooting its seeds everywhere out the tip.
(Some people think a 12-year-old girl shouldn't be exposed to this – but c'mon, I grew up around farm animals. And Appalachian farmboys, which is pretty much the same thing.)
This was the early 1980s, and it was whispered around that there was really only one way to get rid of Lustful Cockweed. You had to draw a lot of pictures of President Reagan naked, and put them up on little stakes made of popsicle sticks right by every single Lustful Cockweed plant. That was the only way to make them wilt.
I tried, I really did – but talk about a case of the cure being worse than the disease. I only managed a few renditions of Reagan peen before I just gave up. I got a half-decent crop of strawberries that year – but they were smaller and not as sweet as they should have been, what with the Lustful Cockweed sucking up all the good stuff out of the soil.
I didn't do 4-H much after that. When I turned 13, I discovered heavy metal and masturbation, so those were my hobbies that year. I joined the school marching band. My former strawberry patch still had some strawberries in later years (now going feral), and the Lustful Cockweed took over for a little while since I wasn't drawing Naked Reagan anymore. (No, I don’t know how those Lustful Cockweed seed stalks wound up in my bedroom, I swear.)
My parents sold that old house and moved out just a few years ago. I took one last walk there, and saw no trace of either strawberries OR Lustful Cockweed.
It moves in mysterious ways. You never know when and where it will pop up (ahem). And when it does, it's relentless. Until it isn't anymore.
***
Watch your garden. Constant vigilance!
