Asparagus fingers

Blu, Buster and Beckham. These are all names of children in stories in the Chat magazine. Ridiculous. I'm now getting a good idea of who reads these magazines. They name their children Blu and Buster, call the fire brigade when baby gets a toilet seat stuck on his head and they send their stories in to Chat. Maybe you get paid well for your story? That's why you get nonsense that's not stories at all. The '13 day pregnancy' in this issue wasn't that at all. It's just that she found out she was pregnant quite late in the day, and gave birth 13 days later. It's not really a 13 day pregnancy, is it?

So anyway, I was thinking to myself, maybe I'll send in a story. I could book myself a nice holiday if it pays well.

Ok, now what could I write about? I need a dramatic title. Erm.

"Death by ravioli!" for example. Or "I found an ear in my cake!" Or maybe a disease? Something obscure and probably not real. Like "Rare disease turns my fingers into asparagus spears."

Ok, let's run with that one. I could do a photo of me looking sad...





"It all started when I was 14," I could write. "I've always loved asparagus. If I'd have known what it was going to do to me, I wouldn't have eaten a single one."





"Then, when I was 20, I started to notice the skin on my hands was changing. I thought it might be because I had recently started to work in a kitchen so my hands were exposed to different temperatures a lot. I thought they might just need moisturising. But it made no difference. In fact, my skin was feeling slightly rubbery so didn't absorb the moisturiser at all.

"One day, whilst biting my nail, I noticed it had a funny taste. And the texture was different. And that's when I realised it... My fingers had turned into asparagus!

"I called in sick that day, terrified that I might accidentally cut off one of my own fingers whilst preparing food. I went to A&E with a long sleeved coat on, too embarrassed to show my hands...





"When the nurses asked me to fill out the form, I tried but couldn't pick the pen up. I heard a few nurses gasp and there were whispers of "asparagus fingers" and giggles. I felt so ashamed.

"When the doctor saw me, he said I have a rare disease called vegetablefingeritis. It can happen when someone eats a lot of one vegetable. He said I should be grateful I hadn't chosen to eat carrots, like this poor person...





"I've learned to live with my disease now, and give motivational talks to youngsters about living through adversity and about varying their vegetable intake. Although I struggle to do almost anything which requires the use of hands (most things) I refuse to be defeated by my asparagus fingers and have learned how to do other things which do not require hands. I am extremely adept at turning on the TV using my nose, and watching daytime TV. Rikki Lake is my favourite."

And at the end there could another photo of me, with a different vegetable, a mushroom perhaps. And the caption could be "Laura stays away from asparagus now!"





What do you think? Should I send it in? I think it's got potential.