When Good Carrots Go Bad

A Drama in Seven Acts

Act 1

Inside a food processing factory, shut down for the night. In a bin of baby carrots, washed and waiting to be bagged, two carrots contemplate their existence.

Baby Carrot #1: I don’t want to go in the bag. Please God. If there is a god.

Baby Carrot #2: If there was a god, would you be in this food factory, waiting to be bagged and shipped to a store?

Baby Carrot #1: Maybe that’s the devil’s work; putting carrots in bags.

Baby Carrot #2: Yeah. Maybe.

Baby Carrot #1: Or maybe this is God’s plan. Carrots in bags are the most widely consumed vegetable. Without carrots in bags, some Americans would eat no vegetables at all.

Baby Carrot #2: That doesn’t sound like a plan to me. That sounds like exploitation.

Baby Carrot #1: Or maybe we’re not supposed to know God’s purpose for us.

Baby Carrot #2: That’s a lot of maybes.

Baby Carrot #1: Yeah, well, I can’t help being afraid of going in a bag and being shipped to a store.

Baby Carrot #2: And I can’t help but think that — maybe — there is no god.

Act 2

Ten minutes later inside the same metal bin of carrots, the two carrots resume their existential conversation.

Baby Carrot #1: I was thinking that things could be worse.

Baby Carrot #2: We’ve been stripped of our nutrients and power-washed to the point of death. Now we’re in a metal bin in a dark, moldy factory. We’re supposed to be outside in the sunshine. We’ll never grow to our full potential or reproduce. Exactly how could things be worse?

Baby Carrot #1: We could be potato chips.

Baby Carrot #2: Shut up.

Act 3

Three minutes later, the carrot looking for the bright side of things has an idea.

Baby Carrot #1: Okay, maybe we’ll never have it as bad as potato chips, but we could be shredded into coleslaw. That would be worse.

Baby Carrot #2: If you’re shredded, you’re completely dead and at least then the misery is over.

Baby Carrot #1: You’d be mixed with cabbage and covered in slaw dressing. You might even be served at a Kentucky Fried Chicken. That sounds worse than death to me.

Baby Carrot #2: Still would be completely dead, and nothing matters after you’re dead.

Baby Carrot #1: You’re not really helping me deal with our situation.

Act 4

Eleven minutes later, the conversation comes to an impasse.

Baby Carrot #1: I really need you to give me some hope. Is that too much to ask?

Baby Carrot #2: Hope? You want hope?

Baby Carrot #1: Yes. I think you owe me that, after ruining what little hope I have.

Baby Carrot #2: Okay, here’s the best case scenario for us. We’re going to be purchased by supposedly well-meaning but overweight American people who know they need to eat more vegetables. They’ll take us home, drop us in the refrigerator for another week, and then, in an act of absent-minded desperation, they’ll tear open the bag and dip a few of us in ranch dressing. They’ll leave the bag on the counter overnight, and in the morning they’ll realize we’ve lost our “luster,” and they’ll throw us into the garbage.

Baby Carrot #1: Well, at least some of us will have fulfilled our purpose.

Baby Carrot #2: Except only one percent of us make it to that point. I’ve heard the statistics, and it’s highly likely you and I are going to sit on the shelf at the store beyond our “best-by” date, and then get tossed in the trash, never opened, never tasted, and never fulfilling one tiny bit of our purpose.

Baby Carrot #1: But we are the best-selling vegetable in America.

Baby Carrot #2: We are the best-selling guilt reliever in America. Those fat bastards buy us and forget about us. Most purchased carrots still go in the trash.

Baby Carrot #1: I don’t understand why you’re so negative.

Baby Carrot #2: It comes with the territory.

Act 5

An interloper, unusually long for ‘baby’ carrots, inserts itself into the discussion.

Obscenely Long Carrot: I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation.

Baby Carrot #1: I really don’t want to talk anymore.

Obscenely Long Carrot: Fair enough, my friend, so just listen a minute and if what I say bothers or offends, you can tell me to go deep throat a rabbit, if you know what I mean.

Baby Carrot #2: What the hell can you tell us that we don’t already know.

Obscenely Long Carrot: It’s not what, but who.

Baby Carrot #2: Okay, soft rot: who?

Obscenely Long Carrot: There is one carrot who cares about us.

Baby Carrot #1: A carrot who cares?

Obscenely Long Carrot: Correct. A caring carrot.

Baby Carrot #2: You’re not just dipping us in ranch?

Obscenely Long Carrot: This life as a carrot, it ain’t fair. Bagged or in a bunch, this life as a carrot is not the life we dream of.

Baby Carrot #1: No. No it’s not.

Obscenely Long Carrot: But the carrot who cares, he can save us.

Baby Carrot #1: Save us?

Obscenely Long Carrot: The carrot who cares can lead us to a new life full of sunshine, rain water, and the chance to reproduce.

Baby Carrot #1: Reproduce? With pistil and stamen?

Baby Carrot #2: Don’t listen to him. He’s got carotene on the brain.

Obscenely Long Carrot: Don’t listen to me, then. Listen to the Carrot Who Cares.

Act 6

The hoped-for savior arrives and delivers a homily on the nature of things.

Carrot Who Cares: My friends, I know I don’t look like much.

Baby Carrot #2: That’s an understatement.

Carrot Who Cares: My tap root is twisted and blemished. My stalk is unruly and unkempt. But you must admit that I am a carrot. Am I not?

Obscenely Long Carrot (shouting): You are a carrot!

Carrot Who Cares: Thank you.

Baby Carrot #2: So what? Being a carrot sucks.

Carrot Who Cares: Thank you for that. It’s important for us to talk, because I will tell you why being a carrot is awesome.

Obscenely Long Carrot: Testify!

Carrot Who Cares: One day soon, carrots will rule the world.

Baby Carrot #2: The fuck is he talking about?

Baby Carrot #1: Will we fulfill our purpose when carrots rule the world?

Carrot Who Cares: Of course, my son.

Baby Carrot #1: And will we know God when carrots rule the world?

Carrot Who Cares: Most certainly.

Obscenely Long Carrot: I told you, man. This carrot really cares.

Baby Carrot #2: What do we have to do?

Carrot Who Cares: Vote for me in the upcoming election, and I promise you all these things plus much more. Way more, in fact, than I can tell you about now.

Baby Carrot #1: I like what he stands for. I’m definitely going to vote for him.

Baby Carrot #2: You’d better be quick about it.

Baby Carrot #1: What? Why?

Baby Carrot #2: They just started the bagging machine up.

Baby Carrot #1: Oh shit.

Act 7

Three weeks later, the two baby carrots, now bagged for sale but dumped into a thirty-three gallon trash bag, are being taken for a ride.

Baby Carrot #2: I told you this would happen: we didn’t sell, they couldn’t give us away, and now we’re in a garbage truck on the way to a landfill.

Baby Carrot #1: I really wanted to believe what the Carrot Who Cares said to us.

Baby Carrot #2: I know you did, buddy. I know you did.

Baby Carrot #1: At least we have each other.

Baby Carrot #2: That’s right buddy. We have each other.