Who Ya Gonna Call?

1096  Who Ya Gonna Call?  

(DIPINDAHEARTA, TX) -- This small east Texas town calls itself “the Tomato Capital of the World” and is home to the world’s largest salsa bowl.  But something’s gone terribly wrong.

Instead of tens of thousands of pounds of chubby firm tomatoes, this year’s crop grew perforated and shriveled on the vines.  Mayor Mel and Manager Mo were stumped.  The department of Agriculture was stumped.  

We are not stumped.  The secret is in that giant salsa bowl.  Living in that giant salsa bowl. It’s vampires.  Vegetarian vampires.

This is a new breed, already gaining ground on the horror film circuit.  They are compassionate vampires, vampires who don’t want to hurt innocent creatures... like us.  

And they have been evolving biologically for some time now (even though evolution is “only a theory.”)

You can identify a Vegvamp easily by the look of his fangs.  They are blunter than, say, Dracula’s, unsuitable for penetrating human throats.

And they are longer and have serrated edges perfect for sucking the blood of watermelons.

But the meal of choice is tomato juice.  It’s kind of like eating tofu or soy Burgers.  Looks like the real thing.  Even tastes like the real thing.

So a large colony of Vegvamps has settled here in east Texas.

This could be an economic disaster.  Once local officials and farmers realize what’s happening, though, they can take steps to preserve their industry.  If it’s not too late.

They may be able to provide a separate crop for local consumption.  They may charge a fee for visiting their fields after dark. (That would improve the unemployment numbers because they’d need to build new fences and hire security guards.)

Why, you may ask, haven’t these vampires been spotted and contained?  A good question with several good answers.  First, they’ve learned to dress better.  You don’t wander around a town in Texas wearing a black woolen cloak in 110 degree weather.  So these guys just put on the uniform of the day, which is jeans and cowboy boots, some with spurs.

Second, they keep their mouths shut.  That’s kind of like gays in the closet.  No one knows about their secret lives or their secret fangs.

Third, they talk the talk.  They’ve taken speech training to get rid of the Transylvanian accent and learned words like “y’all” and “podner,” “Catywampus,” “Pole Axed,” and “Frog Strangler.”

And they’ve learned to curb their V-8 lust during daylight hours.

Assimilation.  Good for the vegvamps.  Bad for the crops.

Shrapnel:

--Panic at the “Today Show” over ratings?  Look not the fairly decent executive producer and the removal and replacement of a co-anchor, but to the multi-hour dilution of the franchise, the boardroom games of a new majority owner and the quality of the newer employees.  And thank your lucky stars that one of your two major competitors remains an also-ran.


I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments and recipes to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2012