Nominative determinism #4

This evening I was caught and ticketed for doing 94 kph in an 80 kph zone. The officer who, quite rightly, apprehended me was called Jack Driver. He was never going to be a doctor, lawyer or plumber, was he.

The reason I was speeding was that I was running late – children, work, yada yada – and keen to get to my wife’s work in time for the Great Pumpkin weigh-in. There had been a competition among the staff, who are mostly farmers and scientists, to grow the biggest Cucurbita: many found it a challenge as they had only, or mostly, male flowers. There was much low-key but bitter discussion of the difficulties of hand-fertilising the female flowers with a pastry brush or similar. Here in the country, I reflected, we make our own fun.

At the end of the day the winner was 251 kilos and I was $80 lighter.

If you have ever met a Jack Russell terrier, you’ll have an idea of how big this particular Great Pumpkin below is. Tragically it was scratched before the race – the roosters got to it before the grower could stop them. The winners were much, much bigger.