Remember Bob? He was a fifth grader’s gardening effort – an eggplant that turned into a celebrity. After that, he turned into Fried Eggplant. That was the life he was supposed to live. And Bob did his duty until the end. 

Somehow, eggplant stories are still following me around this year. I don’t know if it’s because I have a magical eggplant bush that has produced over 40 eggplants to date or because I’m started to be shaped like an eggplant, but I just can’t seem to escape this vegetable. 

Because I’ve grown so many eggplants, I’ve been handing them out right and left all over town. In fact, just last week I ran into a friend at the post office who said, “Stop already! Frankly, I just can’t face one more Eggplant Parmesan.” 

So imagine my surprise yesterday when there was a knock at my front door. I opened it, only to find Best Neighbor Ever standing there. She looked me straight in the eye and demanded, “I want an eggplant right now.” All I could stammer back was, “You sure you don’t need more than one?” 

I dashed to the fridge, grabbed one and handed it to her. She thanked me, turned on her heels and was gone quick as a wink. I spent the next hour pondering if I had turned her into an eggplant junkie. 

So the next morning, when we took our daily walk, I jumped right in and said, “So what about the eggplant?” 

Seems she had decided to make a giant blackboard for her kitchen and she wanted to paint the frame “eggplant” color. BNE had looked high and low through paint sample colors and just couldn’t find the right shade of purple. 

If you’re “in to” colors like my neighbor and this former Advertising Guru are, you understand that purple is purple and eggplant is not. It’s more of a black, purple and red thing. It’s such a tough color that they didn’t have it in the large 64 Crayola crayon box. And those guys even had Periwinkle. 

So, Best Neighbor Ever dashed to the paint store, eggplant in hand. She marched up to the Paint Mixer Man, handed him the eggplant and said, “Here. Match this.” His jaw dropped and he replied, “Wow. I’ve never gotten to match a vegetable before.” Obviously, she was dealing with a pro. 

He put the eggplant into the color matching system, hit the button and handed her a sample. It was purple. BNE shook her head and said, “Nope. Needs some black and red.”  PMM played with it some more while a crowd started to gather. I don’t know if they were simply eggplant fans or had never seen a woman in the paint department with a vegetable before.

He frowned, scratched his head, and hit the black and red buttons. Again, he produced a paint color. Together they decided it definitely needed more red because now it appeared the color of a rotten eggplant instead of one straight off the bush. 

So PMM put the can back under paint and hit the red button again. Suddenly he pulled it out and stopped the machine. Eureka! He’d hit that vegetable dead on. A cheer came from the crowd. 

I’m happy to report the blackboard frame is the perfect shade of eggplant and when Best Neighbor Ever got back from the paint store, she whipped herself up a mighty delicious Eggplant Parmesan, too.

Well, like I’ve always said, my world’s a more colorful place because I garden. Eggplant, anyone?

Spreading laughter throughout the world…one chuckle at a time.

Mikie Baker
www.mikiebaker.com