Part VI: Criminal Of The Corn

For a few minutes, you could argue that this is what I became. All on account of my pet rock -- Seymour -- wanting a souven"ear" from my Iowa trip.

*Yeah, I know what you're thinking..."go ahead, blame it on the rock!"*

You obviously haven't met Seymour.

As I was arriving in Iowa, my itinerary of things to do was bouncing about in my head. Numbered in there, of course, and having (at the time) no thoughts other than those of a law-abiding gift shop visitor, I was wondering just where in the Sam Hillfeathers I was gonna buy Seymour an authentic ear of Iowa corn.

See, Seymour insisted that it be authentic Iowa corn. Since I -- his subservient benefactor and payer of the rent and power that allows him to watch movies on the VCR -- was a native of Iowa, he wanted something that was pure Iowa. And with my sense of humor firmly in Seymour's mind, he knew exactly what that something had to be: CORN.

I suspect my rock was exercising a wee bit of sarcasm here.

Initially, I saw no problem: September is the season of harvest in Iowa. Corn would be in excess abundance. Perhaps, even in a gift shop somewhere.

Yeah, right. Who buys a single ear of corn as a souven"ear" for a precocious pet rock? That question, perhaps once asked by an entrepreneurial gift shop operator, was quickly answered with a "no one in their right mind".

Such was the logic of the gift shop operator at my hotel: none to be had. I was going to need to find a gift shop operator with a more off-the-wall turn of economic mind. Or resort to other means.

Granted, I could have tried buying a can of corn, and passed it off to Seymour as the real thing, sans the cob, which wouldn't fit in the can. But Seymour -- despite his intellectual denseness in some matters -- isn't that gullible. Especially since I let him use my online encyclopaedia.

So on Thursday, having attended to many of my other itineral matters, I turned to the issue of the Seymour souven"ear". While driving the rural roads, surrounded by near-harvest time cornfields that blotted out the distant horizons, a shameless notion touched upon my soul: why not just pluck one from the field?

Yeah, I know: that would be stealing. Theft. The taking of property belonging to someone else, without permission and fiduciary renumeration. To the legal purist, that's one way of viewing it. Not being a legal purist, I settled upon another: the average acre produces around 135-139 bushels of corn. By taking one ear from one acre, that acre would suffer a microscopic wee miniscule drop in that bushel-per-acre average.

I thought long and hard about all the things I'd been taught from childhood -- like not to blame my audible flatulence on the dog, 'cuz everyone and the dog would know better -- and concluded that this particular example was non sequitur. Besides, I just couldn't face the ugly implications of returning home without that which Seymour had petulantly demanded.

So at a point where a tractor access lane to a field availed itself off the road, I turned in and parked. I chose a field that was about 2 miles from where I'd lived on the first farm. Not wanting to be seen doing the malfeasant deed, I walked a few rows into the field; there hidden from the view of all but Himself, I muttered something akin to a "judge me not on the purloin of one ear, Lord", and did the deed. Back to the car I went, carrying an ear in the husk, which gave me a quizzical "you don't resemble a John Deere harvester..what is the meaning of this?". When I told it what was the meaning, it shook it's cob, muttered "well don't that beat all", and resigned itself to the long road back.

Thankfully, it didn't have a cell phone like the rest of the world.

Seymour, needless to say, is thrilled with his souven"ear". And even the souven"ear" -- after Seymour showed it the section in the encyclopaedia on the production of ethanol from corn, and a how grits is made -- is decidedly happy with the change of venue.

As for me, a couple xtra "hail Marys" and donations to charity might just get me off the hook with Himself; but I won't know that until The Great Disposer of Events disposes of me. And I digress.

Next up, Part VII: Remembrance