Dial Z for Zucchini

It all started with 4 zucchini seeds at the end of May in Jen’s garden box. Two of the seeds failed to thrive after a week of very hot, then smoky and rainy weather. So Jen planted two more, in yet another demonstration of bad garden choices she has made in her life. A fierce advocate for chaos gardening, this would be the year her chaos wish would be granted. But not as planned. Never as planned. By late July, the zucchini plants had grown into sentient beings, and had come close to blocking out the sun.

They kept growing.

And growing.

And growing.

The plants had even developed a taste for gin and tonics.

But Jen suspected nothing, befriending the plants, encouraging them, bragging about them to her friends.

By September 18, they had taken Jen’s arm, which became the new leader of the zucchini army.

The first frost happened shortly thereafter. The still growing zucchini did not die, and they became every stronger. On the September 24, the army became weaponized.

Jen gave the zucchini to friends, colleagues, and neighbours to get them out of the house, but little did she know that gave them even more power. They now had connections to all the zucchini across the province, were forming secret societies at night while everyone slept (or most people anyway, some are really bad at sleeping but are so tired at night that they didn’t suspect a thing), were hatching zucchini based plans.

Those who liked or commented on a photo of a zucchini on social media had their feeds spammed with ads to join zucchini protests and contribute to fundraisers. It was unclear what the money was going to, but many donated a dollar or two in the hopes that the zucchini would just go away. A benefit concert for the zucchini popped up one night at Borden Park with local bands playing and local gardeners bringing veggie percussion, no one knew how it started but people turned out just to watch the spectacle. The bands and gardeners didn’t remember how they came to participate in the concert, they just felt compelled to be there.

At the start of October, CBC reported a new trailer billboard had been spotted on Highway 2 near the Millet exit with “Fuck Trudeau” spelled out in zucchinis, and everyone started sharing their suspicions that the zucchini army had been taken over by the freedom convoy crowd. The zucchini were furious. Sure, they had become accidental revolutionaries, but they weren’t fucko trucko zucco buckos. They had some vegetable standards. Under the cover of night and giant zucchini leaves, they assembled.

The next day, the province awoke to the news that Take Back Alberta had rescinded all their earlier statements, apologized and promptly disappeared. The anti vax, pro hate, disinformation spreading members were nowhere to be seen. When Danielle Smith was asked to comment on the situation, a large zucchini wearing a suit jacket and sunglasses appeared at the press conference in her place, evading many of their questions, all while greenly smirking at the cameras. The mostly common sense people of Alberta cheered this disappearance while remaining apprehensive, as they truly didn’t know whether they’d be next. And ultimately learned not to mock zucchini and people who grow too many of them, but rather work with the green overlords to form a new government for the province.