The least predictable emotion came from the most predictable demolition

One day a farmer and his helpers went out to their fields to tend to the crops. It was a warm sunny day and they were all slightly annoyed at the prospect of laboring in these conditions all day.

"It's not the heat, it's the humidity", remarked Greg, a tall lanky farm helper person.

"It's not the balminess, it's the barometer", replied Sherilynn, a young intern working her first summer on the farm.

"It's not about the dog days, it's about the dew point", chimed in Mr. Ampleciovore, whose sun-work wrinkled skin were a testament to the countless summers he'd spent in these fields exchanging these same platitudes with generations past of interns and farm guys, many of whom had come and gone while he remained.

The farmer, whose name was Dave, had received his degree in farming 20 years ago and reflected back fondly on his days in farming university where'd be learn about farming every day from people who knew enough about farming to teach him about farming. He paused and stared at Greg, Sherilynn and Mr. Ampleciovore for a moment.

"These vegetables aren't going to harvest themselves!", he shouted in a voice loud enough to make even his great great grand-pappy stir in his grave. Which incidentally was like 100 feet away from where they were getting ready to go out and do some legit grade-A first-class farm work.

They realized he was right and grabbed their tools and went off into the field to do farm stuff using those tools.

---

Later that day, after they'd plowed and picked and plowed and picked, Dave realized it was just about time to wrap up the day and settle down in the big house for a nice hearty dinner of stew that he'd eat right before he polished his shoes or polished his rifle, depending on which looked like they needed to be polished more. He walked around the area of the people to see which people were done with their veggies and who had more to do.

Greg and Mr. Ampleciovore were both done with their farm stuff, and they took Dave's approach as a symbol that the day was done, stopping to wipe their brows only briefly before they hopped into the cool air conditioned cab of farmer Dave's Ford F-250 pickup truck with more torque and greater towing capacity than other truck in it's class.

Dave approached Sherilynn, who like I said before was still an intern and thus didn't know the name of all the vegetables yet.

"Sherry", Dave said, "you almost done?"

"Almost", she replied, "I've just got a few more of those really heavy green things to pluck out".

"Ah yes, those sure are cumbersome, let me give you a hand" said Dave. He then did indeed give her a hand if you catch my meaning and I think you do.

---

Years later, after she'd become a doctor of philosophy and was teaching her undergraduate class the ins and outs of thinking about thinking, one of her students asked Sherilynn what she did for her internships back in the day when she was younger and not yet a professor. She thougth about it for a second, and then told them something quite extraordinary.

"Well, I don't like to brag, but one summer I spent working at a farm and that led to me being the inventor of a vegetable."

"What in the sam hell are you talking about?!", remarked Buster Douglas, a student in her class (not the former boxing champion, just a different guy with that name).

So she told them the story about the fateful day when Dave had helped her with those last few veggies, and she'd misheard him when he said "those sure are cumbersome", thinking he said "some tough cumbers". Then later that night while Dave was all alone, full of stew, polishing his rifle, Sherilynn was sitting on the back porch with Greg, remniscing about the time just a few hours ago when they'd been plucking some lush verdent plants out of god's green earth.

"Oh yeah, what was that tough challenge you had at the end of the day?", asked Greg.

"Oh that?", sighed Sherilynn, "that was just a little queue of cumbers I had to deal with."

“And that class, is how the cucumber got its name”, remarked Sherilynn as she finished her story.