The cabbage patch

I'm really not supposed to write about my wife's new boobs, even mere trivialities like hearing her in front of the bathroom mirror muttering, "I don't think breasts are supposed to have right angles," or "I feel like one of the Girls Next Door." Weeks ago we might have been able to describe their girth and density with common geological or astronomical terminology, but they've become so exaggerated that we can only use the patois of bad reality television. "I feel like the silicon skeleton in Dr. 90210's closet," she says.

"The guy who wears sleeveless scrub tunics and practices Capoeira, the Brazilian art of dance fighting?"

"Yes."

So instead of writing about her boobs, I'm only allowed to write about her cabbages. She has gone through several cabbages this past week, using their leaves in some private mammary ritual to treat what she calls "engorgement" (a word that brings back shiver-inducing memories of family reunions at the Ye Olde Country Buffet). When I express some concern that our son will develop an unnatural attraction to sauerkraut, she orders me to walk up to the market to get more cabbages.

Juniper and I go to Eastern Market a couple times every week. The market is a few dozen produce wholesalers, butchers, cheesemongers, spice dealers, nut peddlers, and shea butter vendors who keep irregular hours in windowless shops. The kid and I once bought a pot for some flowers up there and the salesman who sold it to us handed me his card. "I'm the biggest pot dealer in town," he said casually. "Yeah, you've sure got a lot them!" I said. "No," he responded tersely, pointing at a handwritten phone number on his card. "I'm the biggest pot dealer in town."

In other words, Eastern Market is kind of a magical place.

This morning, we stopped by for another carton of cabbages, but the produce dealer I normally go to was closed. We poked around a few graffiti-covered side streets before I found another wholesaler with a giant black man wearing coveralls standing out front. "You guys open to the public?" I asked.

"What you need?" he replied. I told him about our household cabbage exigency, and he told me they had as many cabbages as I could carry home. "First though," he said, "Let me put down this MARIJUANA." He enunciated every letter in that word as he laid a huge spliff down on a box of red bell peppers. What is it about me that makes people think I care? Is it the hair? The guy disappeared under three hanging polyurethane strips and came back to hand me two cabbages. I handed him a buck.

"Thanks man," I said. "Now I'm going to go home and help my wife put these on her nipples."