Spinach in the News

This is what happens when farmers stop paying attention.

New York (YABNews) – While the majority of Americans have experienced little daily change with the FDA’s latest warnings on the hazards of consuming spinach, one local man has seen his life turned upside down.

A recent outbreak of E. coli bacteria in the nation’s spinach crop has led to fairly widespread panic across the country, as well as provoking CNN into asking ominous questions on its screen graphics such as “Spinach: Vegetable of Doom?” After a morning roundup of the cable news networks ongoing coverage of Leafygate ’06, it appears that the Democrats are blaming FoxNews, FoxNews is blaming Terrorists, and Terrorists are blaming Mark Brunell.

All four did not immediately return phone calls to YABNews. Surprising, since Brunell phoned it in last night.

Regardless of the cause, 4 Americans have died and another 109 cases have been reported to the FDA. The outbreak has spanned 19 states, and curiously, none are in the Southeastern United States. Both the FDA and mothers are now aware that someone hasn’t been eating their vegetables, and are immediately sending senators of said states to their rooms.

But what of the man who was mentioned in this article’s opening and then ignored for the following two paragraphs? Since YABNews and the FDA are always getting each others’ mail, we decided to hang on to Case #110 of the E coli epidemic for ourselves. And man, are we depressed after hearing this guy’s tale.

A local sailor man’s well-being has been crushed due to the recent health advisory, and no one in the farming industry is willing to own up. Mr. Popeye Mononym, who works as a dockworker, has lost his job, lost his girl, lost his house, and lost his appetite – all due to agricultural negligence.Either a mama’s boy or an Atkins diet psycho, Popeye has sworn by spinach consumption for as long as he can remember. And despite there being a fast food chicken chain that shares the same name as him, he insists on the poor man’s lettuce as a sustenance. “You don’t see Roy Rogers eating at Roy Rogers, do you?” he questioned.

At the time of this article, Mr. Rogers has been dead for six years.

But one cannot blame Popeye for this oversight; his hunger strike has left him a tad lightheaded. Last Wednesday, when the news of the E. coli broke, Popeye abided by the federal warning, and by doing so, skipped breakfast. He works as down at the city docks, unloading cargo ships, which he has done ever since retiring from the Navy out of protest for the factual inaccuracies contained within the 1986 movie, “Top Gun.” (Aside from any military gaps in protocol, seriously Tom, how do you put on your shades when you’re hugging Iceman at the end of the movie? Out of thin air they come, damn it.)

Popeye’s supervisor pulled him out of the line by mid-afternoon Wednesday, after his employee was showing signs of immense fatigue. Exhausted, Popeye fell asleep in the break room and overslept, missing a 7 o’clock dinner date with his true love, a Miss Olive Oyl of Long Island. (Doesn’t matter, we suppose, as she just picks at her food judging from her figure.)

With the reduction in productivity, Popeye was fired from his job, and as a blue-collar employee, found himself walking out the door with a substandard paycheck. With rent due, he came to blows with his landlord, a local man who goes simply as “Bluto.”

Despite winding up his right arm like a windmill and tooting his corn cob pipe like a train whistle, Popeye was a first round KO victim to his landlord, and was promptly evicted. Sure, he had some savings in the past that could have paid the rent, but he loaned it today to a “Mr. Wimpy” and was not expecting repayment until Tuesday.

Now he is finished, ‘cause he didn’t eat his spinach.