Dear Carolynn

Dear Carolynn

Yesterday I went to lunch at the Brighton Hotel (Sandgate, Queensland) and ordered a steak. When asked by the chick at the counter if I would like chips-and-salad or vegetables, I asked what vegetables are included? “Mashed potatoes, Peas and….”

Before she had a chance to say anymore, I quickly put a halt to the conversation and immediately responded with, “Chips and salad, please.” She winked–I knew by her empathetic reaction, she understood. She is one of the enlightened, one of the warriors, one of us, one of the ones who understands peas are being used as a weapon to bring an end to the majority of human civilisation. We shared the secret ‘Ban the Peas‘ handshake and went about our business.

Recently, I had lunch at my local boozer, The Belevedere Hotel at Woody Point. I ordered a nice rare steak as always, and as my side, I chose a potato salad. I nearly died when it came with–you guessed it–PEAS! Who puts peas in a potato salad? Are you reading this, Mr Belevedere?

Last night, Carolynn, I decided to tell the story that needs to be told, and share it with the world (or the few who will read it anyway). It’s my personal journey through hell to uncover the truth some refer to as a conspiracy theory.

Author: Mark Bolton. Subbing: Deepseek. Illustrations: Fotor.

Chapter 1: The Great Peas Wars: A Childhood of Suffering

Every dinner was a battlefield. My parents, likely under the hypnotic influence of Big PEArma, insisted I eat every single pea on my plate. There were millions of them on there, I swear and they seemed to multiply like rabbits if I didn’t seperate them as quickly as possible. I thought I was in hell, but I was to discover that hell had a basement for the very special non-conformists, and I was one of its many reluctant guests.

But I wasn’t standing for this, so I rebelled? I had to find a passage back to the place I was before, where there is no smell of pea gas rising up through the air. These little bastards were not going to own me. So, out of sheer survival, I became a tactical genius–well, my genius, as it turned out was seasonal.

In winter, my dressing gown pocket became a secret pea smuggling tool. It didn’t bother me that my dressing gown pockets were left with gravy stains, and my sleeves always ended up with gravy on the cuffs because I was too short to reach my plate properly, but gravy pockets and sleeves were a slight inconvenient cost of survival. Besides, my mum did the laundry, so what did I care! But summers proved to be another challenge altogether. A dressing gown in the sub-tropics was a bit of a dead giveaway.

I came up with a brand new plan that worked for a moment in time only—until my mother noticed the suspiciously large numbers of green dots outside the window beneath the kitchen table nook we had at our then home. Furious, Mum demanded that I, “PICK UP EVERY SINGLE ONE.”

When my mother said jump, jump was in my best interest. So, I went downstairs and rummaged through the green grass and green garden and took those ugly peas back to her hoping she wasn’t going to make me eat them. Then she hit me with the oldest trick in the book: “Mark, I counted how many peas I put on your plate,” she said in a gentle roar. Back downstairs I went–3 times before she accepted I’d found them all (or she became bored with the whole charade).

With that failure, I came up with another brand new plan for the summer battles. A classic. ‘Operation Under Plate Concealment‘. But Mum was no amateur. While my Dad saw nothing, perhaps out of pity, or likely because he’d had a few beers by then and didn’t notice anything, Mum watched me doing it and at the end of dinner lifted my plate and made me eat them–squashed and cold. “No ice cream until every pea has been eaten“, she would bellow. I hated the Queensland summers.

Chapter 2: The Trauma Deepens

Decades later, the scars remain. I gag at the sight of them, at the smell and even the horrible squeaky sound they make when they are in numbers. I rage when restaurants ambush me with peas in curried prawns, savoury mince, or—the ultimate traitorous betrayal—the Aussie meat pie.

Chapter 3: The Conspiracy

Why is marijuana illegal, but peas roam free? One makes me relaxed, happy and, ironically, hungry enough to eat peas. The other makes me relive childhood dinner table torture.

Who decided every meal needs a pea infestation? Shepherd’s pie? Peas. Fried rice? Peas. Potato Salad at The Belevedere????? Really?

Can we blame the ancient Turks for peas? Probably, but the Turks didn’t start this peas eugenics conspiracy to reduce the population so that the ultra wealthy didn’t have to share the planet with we peasants. The young chick at The Brighton Hotel, she, like me and others like us know what the elites are up to. Therefore, it’s the responsibility of the enlightened among us to save the world. Someone must pay for this fodder crime against humanity, but who is behind it all?

Chapter 4: The Evil Mastermind Revealed

Deep beneath the Antarctic snow, in a secret underground bunker you’ll find the answer. Don’t fall for the propaganda about the alien Greys or the Nazi’s, it’s a man who owns USA’s nuclear power plants, a man named, Montgomery Pea Burns.

Now a very old man, Montgomery P Burns, who invented the cure for death by irradiating peas from his diet, has spent centuries perfecting a diabolical plan. Ably assisted by his weak-kneed gopher, Mr Shivers, the evil eugenics blueprint, code-named, ‘Release The Huskies‘, is underway, and Mr Montgomery P Burns is determined to claim the planet for the billionaire class.

Chapter 5: Why No One Sees the Threat

Most people dismiss peas as harmless little veggies. “They’re just peas!” they say. “They’re good for you!” they claim. Shalini tells me, “Stop being a sook, Mark, they can’t hurt you.” WRONG! They can, they do and they will.

• Peas are the ultimate sleeper agents. They look innocent, but they taunt you with their squishy texture and vile, grassy stench.
• They reproduce at an alarming rate. One pea left uneaten? Soon, your entire neighbourhood is a pea-covered wasteland and you’re drowning in them as if in a deep ocean with no strength left to fight.
• They mock us. That sound when they talk together and when they roll on a plate? That’s them laughing at us because they know what befalls us all.

Chapter6: Your Call to Arms

You’ve suffered enough. It’s time for me to:

• Start a GoFundMe for pea-related PTSD therapy.
• Launch a global #BanThePea movement.
• Invent a pea-detecting app that scans food and screams, “DANGER: PEAS DETECTED!”
• Write a strongly worded letter to the International Vegetable Council (if it doesn’t exist, it should), but it’s likely corrupt like the IMF and NATO.

Chapter 7: The Final Stand

One day, you will be free. Until then, you must remain vigilant. Check every meal. Question every chef. Never trust a casserole or a potato salad again.

And remember: You are not alone. Somewhere, another child is right now hiding peas in a napkin, under a fork, or—if they’re truly desperate—in their sibling’s milk.

May the PEA Be Without You