“Don’t get up from that table until you eat all of your vegetables!” Either you’ve heard that before, or you’ve said it many times to your own children or grandchildren. Kids hate vegetables and wonder why they have to eat them anyway. I used to sit at my dining room table for hours, thinking of ways to get rid of them without actually eating them.

Kids have come up with creative ideas about how to get rid of vegetables – from hiding them in their napkins, to feeding them to their pets under the table. One child, Sasha, dreamed of using chemicals on the farmers’ fields to exterminate vegetables for all time.

It seems that Sasha fell asleep at the dining room table one evening, refusing to eat her vegetables. She was not allowed to leave the table until they were eaten. While sleeping, she dreamed about using her father’s chemicals in the storage shed on all the farmer’s vegetable fields. From the beginning it went all wrong in her dream. The chemicals spilled everywhere and she didn't know how to stop their contaminating spread.

All the farmers were mad, but at least she didn't have to eat vegetables. She felt so good about not having to eat vegetables that she dreamed she ate 5 gallons of ice cream with chocolate syrup and whip cream. “Man, is life good,” she thought to herself.

Sasha dreamed that she went to watch television and a news reporter said “Today something terrible has happened. All the vegetable fields in the world have stopped growing vegetables! There are no vegetables anywhere in the world! No one can grow more because chemicals are coming out of nowhere! Hopefully, whoever spread these chemicals will be caught and punished.”

At first Sasha was happy, she jumped up and danced to music she heard in her dream. “This is the best day of my life,” she dreamed. That is, until she heard a fierce knocking at the front door.

“Who is it?” she called. “The police. Open up. We have reasons to believe that a certain person named Sasha may have something to do with our sudden vegetable shortage.”

How could they have known? What had she gotten herself into? “Um, she isn't home at the moment,” she said.

Sasha woke up from her dream, slowly realizing that vegetables were still on her plate. Suddenly, she heard her mother say again, “Sasha! eat your vegetables!”

Thank goodness it was all a dream. She quickly shoved spoonful after spoonful of vegetables into her mouth, finishing them all before running to her room. “From now on I’ll always eat my vegetables,” she said to herself. “Just not the gross ones.”

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