(reprinted by permission from the Monday, July 31st edition of the St. Paul Pioneer Press)

Are Vegetarians Taking It Too Far?

Yesterday, area man, Edward Oroyan, 28, was assualted at his local church. He was given a bag of fresh garden cucumbers from a fellow patron. Upon leaving the church he noted a shifty looking elderly woman, Mary Jane Slaiku, 84, eyeing his cucumbers. Oroyan recalls, “I didn’t think anything of it. Old ladies always look at me funny.”

Oroyan was hit from behind repeatedly by Slaiku’s rattan walking stick. Disoriented, Oroyan tripped over a toddler and loosed his cucumbers. The toddler and Oroyan suffered minor injuries while Slaiku snatched the bag of vegetables. Attempting to escape, several patrons, including the pastor of the church, tackled Slaiku and detained her while authorities were notified.

Pastor Ken Lewis of Trinity Baptist Church recalled, “She fought like donkey! I kept having visions of Jacob wrestling with an angel. But this woman was no angel…”

Slaiku was arrested and brought to the patrol car incomprehensible and foaming at the mouth. When questioned as to what were her motives, Slaiku lunged for a nearby patch of azaleas growing outside the church. Police acted quickly while the onlooking congregation covered their fresh produce. The purloined pickels were returned to Oroyan who stated, “If she’d have only asked I would have shared my cucumbers with her. What upsets me the most is, how are they going to help this poor delusional woman by locking her up? With the price of organic vegetables these days I don’t blame her.”

After Slaiku was properly stowed, Officer Busholvavichwikauski’s advisory, “Vegetables and their effects,” ensued. “On our raids, we find more basement gardens, than we find Meth labs ,” warns Busholvavichwikauski.