It happens over and over again.

I look and look, with scratched hands and itchy arms, searching under the fuzzy, broad cucumber leaves for one more cuke.

The one I know is there, the camouflaged, (shape-shifting?), hidden-in-plain-sight cucumber.

Eventually the mosquitoes, partners in crime, get to me, and I give up.

“I guess I got them all,” I say to myself.

But I know better. It’s in there, laughing to itself, whispering, “I’m getting bigger, bigger, biiiigger . . .”

And it is. I find it later. DAYS later. With a startled, “AAAAGH! Where did you come from!”

IMG_4214

And it is huge. Self-satisfied. With yellowing skin, fat body, and, of course, colossal, tough seeds.

Somewhere in the mass of vines, I’m convinced, is the grandaddy of them all: a tyrant cuke, big as a dirigible. One I won’t find until after the frost when I tear out the vines. Growing, growing, growing . . .

Hold me.

TL