Green Acres

I thrive on civilization. If I get more than half an hour from a mall, I go into withdrawal and require a whiff of Estee Lauder’s free gift to bring me to my senses. To get my shopping fix when traveling, I’ve been known to pull over at all-night drugstores and check out the sale on cough drops. People close to me understand that if I don’t have access to a restaurant with a dessert cart at least once a week, police action may be required.

So how did a nice city girl like me end up in Farm Town?

The closest I’ve ever come to crop rotation is sending my cotton socks through the spin cycle.

I was hard at work one afternoon, trying to figure out how to send a Coffee Smiley to 70 of my closest friends on Facebook when up popped a memo.

“Your sister gave you a pig.”

Excuse me?

Give me barbecued ribs, butterflied pork chops, or a crown roast. Don’t bother me with livestock unless they’re trading them for Red Lobster coupons or gold bricks at the Fort Knox outlet store.

After further investigation I discovered that my own sister, the sister who wore a silver sparkly gown to the 1968 Christmas ball and refuses to get a dog because that’s one more place she has to set for dinner, was plowing virtual farmland like she was digging for dollar sweaters on the clearance table.

I investigated her little piece of potato plantation. She was about to sell her spuds at the market for enough money to keep her in hash browns for years to come. Pretend potato money is just about the same as what I’m stashing in my piggy bank these days anyway, so I signed up for a farm of my own.

In real life, my gross household product is mold on the cheddar. Here was a chance to win friends, pick produce, and while away an afternoon I would normally spend overwatering the cactus.

So this little piggy went to market.

By the end of the week, I had enough livestock to fill an ark, I'd grown fruit trees laden with bounty, and my crops rotated like Shakira’s hips.

Meanwhile my family was living on a steady diet of frozen peas and Spam jelly. When my son asked me for his lunch money I snapped, "You'll have to wait for market price like everybody else." I found myself scheduling bathroom breaks around my harvesting schedule.

So in the end, I had to give up my farm and say goodbye to my amber waves of grain.

Once the American dream interferes with the natural flow of things, something’s gotta give.

But I’m keeping the pig. Times are tough and you never know when Fort Knox is going to open that outlet store.

Or when you’ll get a craving for barbecued ribs.