Saturday, April 04, 2009

Bonsai

Through a certain misapprehension on my part, I have inadvertently come upon a solution to world food shortages. I shall explain.

Until two days ago, I believed that the fruit of bonsai trees, when planted, would result in another bonsai tree. But apparently this is not so. If you plant, say, a bonsai acorn, you eventually get a fucking big oak tree. This might, or might not be, what you're after. If not, the only way to turn it into a miniature oak is to trim its roots while it's still at the sapling stage, before it sprouts upwards and knocks your roof off. This goes for all other trees, too.

Indeed, plants, it seems, are also susceptible to this treatment. Hence my idea.

In my opinion, we should create bonsai vegetables and cereals. A bonsai carrot, for example, would probably contain exactly the same nutrients as its larger counterpart. Yet we'd be able to grow a few hundred of them in the same space normally occupied by one conventional carrot. Likewise, bonsai wheat fields would fit into a window box. We could harvest the wheat with a pair of nail scissors and a saucer, grind up the grain with a pestle and mortar, and produce bonsai sliced loaves.

Of course, after a while, standard evolutionary forces would come into play. That's to say, normal-sized animals that feed on normal-sized vegetables and cereals would have to reduce themselves accordingly to cope with the new dimensions of their fodder. So eventually we'd end up with bonsai sheep and cattle. In fact, it isn't inconceivable that humans themselves might miniaturize in response to their foodstuffs. In 200 years from now, the average man might be bonsai himself, no more than six inches high.

All of which bodes well for the future. In the meantime, though, I’m going to re-pot my own bonsai tree and stick it somewhere more secure. I don’t want midget dogs pissing against it. And I especially don't want to risk attracting the attention of itinerant midget lumberjacks. They might deforest my entire plant collection, leading to localised soil erosion and in-house global warming. Having the polar ice caps suddenly melt into my living room is just too much of a risk, especially since the new wooden flooring has been put down.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is just the 'ammunition' we need to solve the current financial down time. The Japenese, generally speaking, have always been a rum lot. They were evil fuckers during the second world war, and their love of raw fish,m triads and fat men in nappies confirms that things havent changed a jot. The plan is - each uk citizen buys one of these bonsai things. Then, we leave them to their own sinister devices and allow them to grow (indoors) into a 'normal' sized tree. The resulting carnage to roofs, flooring etc will be photographed and used for insurance purposes. Not only will each claiment recieve 200k (or 6 trillion yen) from the japaneze govt due to crimes against trades description - but the increase in disposable income will enable our economy to flourish. Win win. Or rather lucky lucky, sucky sucky long time.

Anonymous said...

This may prompt me to write a Ph.D proposal on dwarfism with regard to species.Java rhinos are smaller than Big fucking African ones.

Joe Slavko said...

But, in the meantime, the Japanese economy might have gone bonsai, too. So their 6 trillion yen will only be enough to buy a bag of bonsai nuts.

Anonymous said...

Bought Amnesty t-shirt.XXL."Not everyone is as built as you".Weep lesser mortals.Body of Hercules moral acuity of Guatama.