$ 4 txting

As I drove home tonight from a long day of hard, sweaty work in the fields, I was listening to NPR news, as is my wont.  I know that it's liberal, but there isn't any music on the radio fit to listen to. The van was just beginning to cool down to a reasonable 90 degrees when I heard the story: a 15 year old girl has won $50,000 in the national texting championship.  Now, I'm so far behind the technological curve that I can't even see the curve, so it is needless to say that I found it surprising that a championship exists for pressing phone buttons.   

I get paid well for the work I put in, but I'm afraid I would have to work for quite some time before I earned 50 grand.  When I first heard the story, I thought that perhaps I should take up texting as my new career.  Then I remembered that I'm 18 and have only sent 5 text messages before, so I decided that we need to prevent discretion against luddites and create a new championship- one that I would have a chance at. 

*drumroll*  

I reveal here, for the first time ever, my plans for the National Tomato Planting Contest.  I'm still looking for a sponsor to provide the $50K prize, but this contest could be BIG.  Televised, even.  The event would take place next spring, at select farms in our area, and would involve a few rounds of planting tomato transplants.  The contestants must dig the holes, throw in some compost and lime, plant the tomatoes, and water them.  Then, we wait a few weeks to check survivability, compare the survival rate and times, and narrow down the contestants with more rounds until there is a winner.  After it's all over, the farmers provide our community with lots of tomatoes. Not only do we have fun wasting money and competing, but after it's over there is a useful result!