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Gregor Samsa awoke one morning to find he had been transformed into a giant cabbage.

He rolled out of bed to get dressed for work but found he couldn’t get dressed because as a cabbage he had no hands.

Nonetheless, he needed to go to work.  He had alimony and child support programs to make and no health insurance so little things like being turned into a spherical vegetable meant nothing to him.

Immediately he recognized he faced a problem:  The door.  Lacking hands he couldn’t open it.

He addressed that problem by rolling into the door repeatedly, making a loud thump each time.

Sure enough, his irate landlady opened the door with her passkey.  “What’s all the racket in here?” she said, then gasped in amazement when she saw Gregor Samsa had been transformed into a cabbage.

“Sorry,” said Gregor, “but I woke up in this condition and must be on my way to work.”

“Holy &#@%, a talking lettuce!” said his landlady.

“Cabbage,” Gregor corrected, though for the life of him he couldn’t say why it was important he correct her.

Gregor rolled down the steps to the front door.  Luckily another tenant was also leaving for work and held the door open for him to roll out.

Rolling along at a brisk rate, Gregor zigzagged around pedestrians with elan.  He felt forced to admit being a cabbage had its advantages.

But not today.

A policeman stopped Gregor’s forward progress by blocking him with his foot.

“Sure now, and what do we have here, me boyo?”

“I’m late for work,” Gregor shouted, conveniently overlooking the fact he had no vocal chords.

“You’re naked in public is what you are,” said the policeman, taking him to the police station.

They put poor Gregor in a cell with a German and a Korean.  He didn’t survive the night vut the sauerkraut and kimchi tasted delicious.

© Buzz Dixon