Some seeds are poisonous, totally agree. It may be plants way of self defense.
Even apple seeds are toxic if crushed.
My mom loved to grow Heavenly Blue morning glories, and those seeds really do have to be soaked in water overnight before planting. One day while I was planting the seeds in our flowerbed (which Oklahoma state law said we had to be allowed to have, and the complex management still fought us over until Mom had the manager made an indigo farmer on a military base for operating a sovereign wealth fund) a social worker (and a very obvious one at that) approached me, saw me wearing plastic gloves and carrying a tiny container of water with seeds at the bottom in one hand and a trowel in the other, and began peppering me with stupid questions which a college graduate should have known the answers to anyway.
"What are you doing?"
I ignored her, hoping she would take the hint and go away.
She sprayed the sidewalk next to me with pepper spray and shouted "What are you doing!?!"
"I'm planting flower seeds."
"What kind of flowers are those? Are they sunflowers?"
"They're Heavenly Blue Morning Glories."
"They look like sunflower seeds!"
I reached into my pocket and showed her the seed packet. It was obvious that she couldn't read.
"See? Sunflowers are usually at least a foot across with dozens of pointy yellow petals. These are about two and a half or three inches across with five light blue petals."
"How many inches are in a foot?"
"Twelve."
"How long is a foot?"
"About thirty-three centimeters."
"How long is that?" Then her cell phone rang. She answered it. "Hello?" She paused. "I still haven't established how long the royal centimeter is-"
There was a man's voice shouting on the other end. I heard "metric system in school!"
She said "Yes, I know that, but he's just an ignorant-"
There was a woman's voice on the other end. I heard "treaty" and "United Nations" spoken with a foreign accent.
At that point a man in a khaki uniform approached and handed me a smallish clipboard with a pen and a message written on it. "I'm from the French Foreign Legion. Is there something I can help you with?"
"Can you videotape this social worker interacting with me? She's assaulted me twice that I've counted, and I'm guessing I can prove she's an undocumented mercenary."
"Why should I help you with that?"
"Because I'll give you fifteen percent of the take from her contract if I can have her debrided successfully."
"What are the chances of that working?" he asked.
"Look at the transactions on her credit card for yourself. I haven't seen them myself, but they should provide a ballpark estimate that tickles your fancy."
"What currency will I get paid in?"
"KRW" I replied, mostly to see if he was geopolitically literate enough to be a real Legionnaire.
He whipped out his cell phone and said something in a language that was obviously not English or French. Cold chills ran up and down my spine in the ninety-four degree heat.
"Where should I send the copy of the video? You only get one."
"Send them to my representative in the Republic of Korea Army."
I had opened an account after getting engaged to a beautiful Korean girl who could also cook and clean very well. Those are rare anywhere. We went with a Korean marriage contract. To prove that we were young and stupid, we talked it over and agreed on twenty-five children. Then my father and stepmother illegally abducted me out of state.
The Legionnaire showed me where to sign, and I signed. He walked away smiling, and more chills ran up and down my spine. A smiling Legionnaire is never a good sign.
"Are those sunflower seeds you're planting? Are they roasted and salted? That helps them grow."
"Sunflower seeds are long and flat with black and white stripes lengthwise. These are morning glory seeds. Morning glory seeds are all black and short and fat and angular, and they're not shaped like sunflower seeds. These are morning glory seeds."
"How big do these grow? I mean how tall?"
"Morning Glories are a climbing vine. They usually grow as tall as the trellis or wall they climb up, or at least as tall as they can get by growing until the growing season is over."
"How tall is that?"
Being unable to accurately estimate the height of every wall and trellis on Earth and recite them in less than the space of an entire lifetime, and knowing that she should know that, I ignored the question. She sprayed pepper spray on the back of my head and got some on my neck.
"Answer the question!" she shouted.
Fools delight in making unreasonable demands. I delight in exploiting fools who are in a position to actually have to pay the reasonable cost of meeting an unreasonable demand.
"It would be impossible for me to accurately estimate and recite the height of every wall and trellis on Earth in the space of a lifetime. That kind of specialized information is very difficult and very expensive to obtain. If you want me to give you accurate information of that kind you'll need to pay for my tuition to obtain a suitable academic degree from a reputable university, and then pay me a suitable hourly wage to work for you by gathering that information and formatting it for your use."
She emptied her pepper spray bottle on my back, then took out another and began emptying it on my back while shouting "Answer it anyway! Answer it anyway! Answer it-"
And then her cell phone rang. She answered it in a huff. "Hello?!" She paused. "Yes, ma'am."
She assumed a rational tone of voice and said "I withdraw the question."
"How tall are you?"
"About two hundred twenty five centimeters."
Then she feigned wonderment and tried another trick. "How high are you?!"
I should explain this trick: "High" is legally declared slang for being under the influence of illegal narcotics. if I had answered "I'm not high", the police who were transcribing this conversation in real time would have simply transcribed my answer as "I'm knot high", and arrested me on drug charges, in part because in America the law enforcement community in America is not required by the United States Constitution to be aware of or adhere to the conventions of the English language or any other language. The United States Constitution is legally interpreted as meaning whatever the highest bidder says it means.
The question "How high are you?" is legally interpreted as meaning "To what extent are you under the influence of illegal narcotics?", which contains the question "Are you under the influence of illegal narcotics?"
The correct answer to this question for me has always been the answer I gave, which was "No." This has been a simple necessity of survival.
Then someone
shouted at me over a bullhorn. "This is the Tulsa Police. You need to give a different answer, Paul. Give a different answer or we will shoot to kill."
Then, over a different bullhorn, came a different voice. "This is the French Foreign Legion, Officer" I forget his name. "Paul gave a very clear answer. There's no need to explain further. If you shoot, even by accident, the Legion will debride the entire city of Tulsa and the families of all of its employees and take over the duties of law and government within whatever we think its borders are in the name of the Republic of France."
"How tall do sunflowers grow?" said the social worker, as if she had not just seen her own stupidity almost cost most of the city their lives. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
"Usually anywhere between one hundred sixty-six centimeters and two hundred sixty-six centimeters." I replied.
Then she remembered where we had been. "Stand up, turn around, and look at me!" She ordered.
"I'm busy right now, ma'am. Couldn't we have this conversation later?"
Then the police came over the bullhorn again. "This is the Tulsa Police. Stand up slowly, turn around, face the social worker, and answer her questions."
I stood up slowly, turned around, and faced the social worker. "What is the extent of this social worker's legal immunity? She's already assaulted me at least four times with her pepper spray."
"Freeze, both of you! This is the French Foreign Legion!"
A Legionnaire walked calmly over to us and took away her several cans of pepper spray and a derringer that I hadn't suspected she was carrying.
She pointed at the wall of the quadruplex where I lived and asked "How tall is that wall?"
"About three hundred thirty-three centimeters tall." I estimated. American government employees are rarely familiar with the systems of measurement that the Federal Government claims to publish and require proficiency in, so whenever anyone uses anything but the metric system, the presence of a sovereign wealth fund is presumed. Always remember this!
"What is the tallest that morning glory vines usually grow?" The social worker demanded, and then I remembered the seed packet in my pocket. I took it out, examined the planting information, and told her the answer.
"About two hundred sixty-six centimeters."
In a burst of genius, she grabbed the seed packet out of my hand and angrily tore it into tiny pieces. "What is the recommended planting depth for morning glories?"
"If I remember correctly it's a quarter of an inch."
"Why aren't you sure?"
"Because I don't have the seed packet anymore." I said, belaboring the obvious.
"Why don't you have the seed packet anymore?" she demanded.
"Because you took it away from me and tore it into tiny pieces and scattered it on my lawn."
Then, over a bullhorn, someone said "He doesn't have to answer questions about morning glories anymore. You took away the seed packet.
Does anybody want to read the rest of this story?
